Chapter 7: We share a ride with some furious guests

POV: Annabeth

One of the first things you learn while on a quest is to never have all your supplies in a single place and never leave important stuff in your backpack. We learned that the last time the hard way when we lost all our supplies within the first few hours after our quest started. So when Chiron handed Percy and me each a canteen of nectar and a Ziploc bag full of ambrosia squares, we made sure to keep at least the ambrosia on our persons in a place we wouldn't easily lose it. We also got one hundred dollars in mortal money and twenty golden drachmas shared between the three of us.

Except for the usual change of clothes and toiletries, I took of course also my Yankees cap with me, but the architecture book I took last time was thrown out. I couldn't believe what I had been thinking to carry something so heavy and unneeded around with me.

Percy and I had talked about it and ultimately decided against taking any more weapons with us this time. Less is more, would be the perfect way to describe our way of thinking about it. Better you survive because you can escape fast than get killed before you could use any supplies. And most other equipment would ultimately only slow us down and was too hard to hide. Of course, we talked to Chiron too, and now Percy had his sword Riptide back.

Grover was in his human disguise again, but I don't think he packed anything different than last time. Not that he had much packed inside in the first place, his backpack was filled with practically nothing but scrap metal and apples. The only thing counting as a weapon – because let's face it, aluminum cans do make for a good distraction but were not that lethal – was his set of reed pipes his father had carved for him.

We said goodbye to the other campers and met up with Argus, and Chiron in his wheelchair on Half-Blood Hill, where Thalia was still trapped in her pine. We hadn't forgotten about her, but she would have to wait a little longer before we could finally free her again. Percy and I had both put a hand on the tree trunk and said goodbye to her earlier and given her that promise. We didn't know if she could hear us, but it was the thought that counted.

There were footsteps coming from behind us.

Luke came running up the hill, carrying his dad's flying shoes. I had expected him to show up of course but still wondered if our falling out would have changed something.

"Hey!" he panted. "Glad I caught you."

I stood there my arms crossed over my chest and neither I nor the others answered him.

"I wanted to apologize to you guys," he attempted to offer an apology, which I didn't buy. "I was an idiot, but well, I thought … um, maybe you could use these."

He handed Percy the sneakers and said, "Maia!"

White bird's wings sprouted out of the heels.

"Awesome!" Grover said.

Luke smiled. "Those served me well when I was on my quest. Gift from Dad. Of course, I don't use them much these days..." His expression turned into something that most likely should be sadness but looked more like annoyance to me.

"Um, thanks?" Percy's reply sounded more like a question.

Well, he wasn't wrong. Even ignoring our knowledge about what purpose these shoes were for, you don't give a son of Poseidon flying shoes as a gift and expect him to show much gratitude. A card saying: Hope you have a quick death! would give the same message.

"Listen, Percy ..." Luke looked uncomfortable. "A lot of hopes are riding on you. So just ... kill some monsters for me, okay?"

It was no wonder Luke was uncomfortable, he wanted Percy to die after all, not win. And, kill some monsters for me. I mean, really? That was not the kind of thing you wish upon a camper going on a quest.

They shook hands. Luke patted Grover's head between his horns, then gave a good-bye hug to me. It took my entire concentration to not flinch away from the touch. But I avoided looking at him. I wanted to see him as Kronos minion and was afraid to possibly see real worry in his face. I didn't want to end up hesitating when the time to decide how we should deal with him came again. It would be better for Percy to make the final decision. I trusted in him picking the right choice and would accept whatever it would be.

Luke left again, the shoes ended up with Grover like they did last time, and after some last few pieces of advice from Chiron, we were back in the car and on our way to Manhattan.

Grover and Percy were sitting next to me. Percy was holding his hand open, Riptide in his pen form laying in it. He had a strange look on his face, and Grover was giving him worrying glances. Even I could tell that his emotions were going haywire. I was wondering what he was thinking when it hit me. He was remembering what Kronos had done with his sword. How Kronos had used it to kill Clarisse, Beckendorf, and the other demigods that were with us in the throne room. How Percy had used it on the corpse of the Ophiotaurus to get to his guts.

I gently closed his hand around it. "It only counts how YOU use it," I whispered. "And you have always defended everyone with it."

He gave me a weak smile and put it back in his trousers.

He started a conversation that I guessed was to keep his mind off further thinking about it.

"So, what did you mean earlier?" he asked. "You once said to me our parents only worked together with the chariot?"

I remembered the talk we had during this car ride the last time. I had told him about the rivalry between Athena and Poseidon, and later while we were on the train, we had talked about us working together instead of getting on each other's nerves all the time, and our parents creating the chariot had been the example I had picked.

"No, I never said that was the only time," I answered. "There were actually quite a few other times as well. For example, your father, my mother, and Hera were the main instigators of the attempt to make Zeus a better ruler. You would think they were trying to replace him from his role as king by the way he reacted but they just wanted him to act like less of a dictator. Well, it is possible that Hera was focused on him stopping his unfaithful lifestyle more than anything else really."

My joke was able to cheer Percy a little up again.

"Is that the point where he started transforming him and his... lucky intended... into animals to escape Hera's notice?"

I smirked when his usual sarcastic tone returned. "No, he did that from the beginning. What do you think Hera would have done if she had known about this during that time too?"

Percy and Grover were both trying their hardest to keep themselves from laughing and even Argus in the front seat couldn't help but smile. He didn't say anything, but the blue eye on his neck winked at us. I remembered the story of him getting ordered by Hera to guard a cow, that had actually been one of Zeus' mistresses the Lord of the Sky had tried to hide from his wife with little success.

"What about Med-, um, you know, your dream? What exactly did you see?" Percy asked after a moment. "You think we should rather…?"

He trailed off, but I knew what he wanted to ask. Should we rather not fight her? I wasn't sure myself. I could still not shake off the feeling of being forced to look her in the face, even if I no longer remembered what she looked like. Was this dream a warning? Should we change our plans? I was most hung up on the point of the dream where I felt as if I had gotten a friend killed. That was what really scared me. Not Percy dying, no, he was strong enough to take care of himself. But Grover had no memories of the past, had far less experience than us. If something happened to him...

But my instincts told me that it was important that we go.

"If we meet, we kill her," I stated after I had finished describing them about my dream.

We would follow the plan, is what I meant. Percy studied my face and then just nodded. He trusted in my judgment, but Grover was everything but happy about hearing this.

"WHAT! You want to fight against Medu- against HER?" he asked baffled and then turned to Percy. "And you're agreeing with her?"

"Ignoring a demigod dream is dangerous," I told him.

"Exactly! Which is why we should head in the opposite direction as soon as we realize we are near her!"

"The message was to trust your instincts, and mine are telling me to kill her," I said. "We will do it like Perseus. We surprise and kill her. She'll be dead before she even realizes what happened. No problem."

I prayed that I was right. Grover didn't seem to believe me, which most likely came from the fact that he could read my emotions and if I had to be honest I didn't believe it either. The only one who seemed nonchalant was Percy. As if a fight against Medusa was nothing special. Considering all the monsters he had fought before, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that was true for him.

Traffic slowed us down in Queens. By the time we got into Manhattan, it was sunset and starting to rain.

Argus dropped us at the Greyhound Station on the Upper East Side. Taped to a mailbox was a soggy flyer with my picture on it: HAVE YOU SEEN THIS BOY?

I met Percy's eyes as he ripped it down.

"Let's hope it doesn't become a problem," I said. Again, went without saying of course.

Grover and Percy started talking about Percy's mother and his, supposedly as bad as Tartarus smelling, stepfather. I was pretty sure Percy had only joked, but I didn't ever want to meet that man in person.

I thought about our upcoming bus ride. It was one of the things I was least happy about in our planning. I didn't want to fight the Furies inside a narrow place like the bus again, but the bus did take us close to Medusa's place. There was the possibility that we could fight them here, but then we would miss the bus and would have to walk. I was almost sure that they wouldn't really try to hurt us. Almost. I was slapping my Yankees cap nervously against my thigh while we waited. Seeing Grover's worried look I decided it would be better to lighten the mood up a little. Since Percy and I were already feeling restless from waiting as well, we decided to used one of Grover's apples to play Hacky Sack again. So, until the bus finally appeared we had a good time at least.

"Remember the plan if anything goes wrong during the ride guys," I told them while we were waiting for our turn to enter.

"Right, the plan," Grover mumbled but after our game, he didn't look as nervous anymore.

We boarded and then split up. Percy and Grover left their packs with me close to the entrance and walked to the back of the bus, while I put my cap on and waited.

Our plan was for Percy to get the Furies' attention while I attacked them invisible from behind. I would have reversed the roles, but Percy had the better weapon to defend against them. Like this, we hopefully could kill or escape them with our supplies intact.

Just like last time they boarded the bus last and blocked off the exit. I looked back and saw Percy trying to calm down Grover, who had started to freak out again.

The Furies moved again as soon as we had entered the Lincoln Tunnel.

The one I guessed was Alecto stood up and announced to the whole bus: "I need to use the restroom."

"So do I," said the second sister.

"So do I," said the third sister.

They all started coming down the aisle.

I picked up our bags, to make them disappear. When they moved past me Alecto stopped, sniffing, and looked straight at me. My heart was pounding. Could she see through the invisibility? Hades had a helmet way more powerful than my cap; did that mean they could see through something of this level? Percy had once told me that the zombies that had hunted them during the quest to save Artemis and me were able to see through it. But they didn't attack Percy last time.

Come on, I thought. Keep going like you did last time.

It seemed to work because they kept going.

I sneaked in direction of the driver, putting our backs on the front row seat behind him. We were almost out of the Lincoln Tunnel now. I snapped my fingers next to the driver. It was something I had asked Chiron to teach me over the last few days.

"You will take the next exit and stop by the river," I told him, before hurrying after the Furies.

The Furies had already reached the back seats and began to hideously wail. They no longer were in human disguise but showed their leathery brown hag bodies with bat's wings and hands and feet like gargoyle claws. The people on the bus were screaming, cowering in their seats. Here was to hope none of them did a photo this time because that trick I just did wouldn't work on so many people. At least not when I was the one attempting it.

The Furies were blocked from further advancing and surrounding my friends by Percy's raised sword. They lashed their whips in anger but stopped their approach.

"Where is it? Where?" they hissed.

"I liked you better as a Math teacher," Percy told her, ignoring her question completely. "Go back grading math tests."

The Furies started growling and raised their whips.

I used that opening to attack. I stabbed the Fury on the right under her raised arm and then slashed across her back, making her explode into dust. It distracted the other two for long enough for Percy to stab Riptide into the neck of the Fury on the left, leaving us only with one.

Alecto moved back into a seat, most likely to guard against the invisible attacker that was me. She was baring her yellow fangs at Percy.

"Perseus Jackson, you hav-"

Whatever Alecto had wanted to say was interrupted when a tin can hit her straight in the face.

Before she could do anything else, there was a sword hilt sprouting from her chest. I could see the hatred in her face when Percy pulled out his sword and she exploded and followed her sisters into Tartarus.

I took a quick glance out of the windows to see the bus had already taken an exit and was driving down a rural New Jersey road. I ripped off my cap and Percy closed his pen.

"Look at that," I said. "It's already our stop. How about we get out of here."

The bus came to a perfectly timed standstill at the same place it had last time, just as we were arriving in front of the door with our backpacks again. The other guests were still in a daze but had stopped screaming, looking around confused. A guest in a Hawaiian T-shirt started raising his camera as if to snap a picture.

The door flew open.

We were out of the doors and plunged into the woods before he had enough time to take a shot. The sounds of yelling and stampeding passengers as they were trying to get out of the bus as well were slowly getting quieter behind us.

Percy was repeatedly looking up at the sky as if he was waiting for something. Last time a lightning bolt had blown up the bus and it had started raining, but it was awfully quiet this time around. When he looked like he wanted to tell us out loud about this observation I interrupted him.

"Don't jinx it," I hissed to him.

Our quest and plan went smoothly till now, but I was sure our luck wouldn't hold forever. Better kill Medusa as quickly as possible before something went wrong.

Like an omen announcing misfortune, it started to rain again.

We walked through the woods along the riverbank. A lightning strike followed by booming thunder in the sky above us made us flinch. It seemed to have woken up Grover from his shock though.

He was shivering and braying, his eyes turned slit-pupiled and full of terror. "Three Kindly Ones. All three at once."

I pulled him along. "Come on! The farther away we get, the better. Who knows what else got attracted by them."

"At least our plan worked," Percy put in. "That could have ended up so much worse."

Like last time he meant.

We kept on wandering through the trees. The smell of them and the river mixing was unpleasant. It wasn't the worst thing I had smelled, but still.

"We're a team, right?" I repeated the statement Percy had given me the first time around.

He smiled.

"Sure, that were some pretty neat tin-can-throwing skills you showed, G-man," he said. "Mrs. Dodds looked really stupid with that imprint on her face"

"It was great, wasn't it?" Grover answered. "But the two of you were really fast yourselves. I can't believe how good Percy got in such a short time. And how much in sync the two of you are."

He gave us a knowing look. I returned it and raised my brow at him, not liking how he made that sound. It wasn't wrong or anything, we obviously were closer than just friends, but the way he said it was like he was expecting us to start to complete each other's sentences or something.

Suddenly he started cracking up. "Y-you, you two are just-," he looked up again and only started to laugh louder. He was now bending forwards holding his stomach.

Percy and I looked at each other and then we understood what he meant. We had the same look on our faces, it made even the two of us smile.

I rolled my eyes exasperated.

"Come on Goat Boy," I told him. "Let's get out of this forest."

After tripping and cursing for around another mile, we could finally see light up ahead again. It was a scene that was familiar to me. Not only had I lived through it once already, but I had just dreamt about it this morning.

In front of us was Medusa's lair.