AN: I have exams coming up, so the update frequency is going to slow down for the time being. In exchange extra-long chapter today.

Chapter 12: We become movie stars on Mount Olympus

POV: Percy

The next afternoon, June 14, seven days before the solstice, our train rolled into Denver. Nothing unexpected had happened on our journey after we left St. Louis, and we were ready to check off the next point on our to-do quest-list. My conversation with the Nereid had gone similar to last time, and I was bound to meet her again in Santa Monica. But there was something different, something I gave a lot of thought since I realized it yesterday.

Well, there were technically two things. The Nereid had given me a request before she departed, and it was not difficult to understand what the meaning behind it was, but I had pushed that to the back of my mind for now.

So that left only the other thing. I had inherited so many different abilities from my father, I even recently learned that I could heat and freeze water, but there was one ability I never even considered trying. Well, there were most likely a lot of abilities I never thought about trying (like if I could teleport myself in different bodies of water like that Nereid, how neat would that be?), but the ability I was thinking about was cleaning water.

I always knew how polluted the rivers were, and always accepted that as a given, something I couldn't change, but was it? I never even thought of the possibility that I could do something against that, but my father had gifted me a Sand Dollar to my fifteenth birthday, that I had used during the battle of Manhattan to clean the Hudson and East River. If my father could do that, why shouldn't I be able to?

What was it that Pan had said when he faded? Everybody would have to do their part to protect nature. It was something I would have to test out when we returned to camp, or maybe I could ask my father when I met him on Olympus?

I was pulled out of my thoughts when Annabeth suddenly halted. She had led us through downtown and the dry, hot air for about half an hour. I had assumed she would lead us directly to the same diner as last time (not that I could remember where exactly that was) but we had stopped on a deserted parking lot. Annabeth whispered something to Grover, pointing at me, before he nodded with a sighed, and disappeared with Allapsar.

I blinked. "Is it just me," I asked. "Or are you treating Grover like a babysitter?"

The question was appropriate in my opinion, given that this was the second time she had sent Grover away with the girl now, but Annabeth gave me that Look. The one she gives me every time when she thinks I said something stupid or was particularly slow on the uptake.

"No, that's just you," she answered. "I am treating Grover like the experienced Keeper he is and let him protect the untrained demigod, while he uses his nose to keep a lookout for monsters around us."

Wasn't that essentially the same thing? I decided not to voice that thought to Annabeth.

"Iris message?" I asked instead.

Annabeth nodded. "Let's do it like last time. Show Kronos that everything's going according to his plans," she said, and then, almost like an afterthought she added, "And I want to hear what exactly Luke says to you."

She put on her Yankees Cap and disappeared, while I created a rainbow in the fine mist I had summoned with help of my powers.

"O goddess, accept our offering," I said and threw a drachma into the rainbow. "Half-Blood Hill."

The mist revealed the sight of the strawberry fields and the Long Island Sound to us, looking from a position on the porch of the Big House, Luke standing with his back to us.

"Luke!" I called.

He turned, his eyes wide. "Percy!" he exclaimed then furrowed his brows. "Where are Annabeth and Grover? Are you guys ok?"

"They are fine," I answered. "Lot's of monsters, so they're standing guard. Where's Chiron?"

"He's down at the cabins breaking up a fight," he said, looking at ease now. "Things are pretty tense here, Percy. Word leaked out about the Zeus—Poseidon standoff. We're still not sure how—probably the same scumbag who summoned the hellhound. Now the campers are starting to take sides. It's shaping up like the Trojan War all over again. Aphrodite, Ares, and Apollo are backing Poseidon, more or less. Athena is backing Zeus."

Yeah scumbag alright, I thought. At least you know what you are yourself.

"So what's your status?" Luke asked me. "Chiron will be sorry he missed you."

I knew I had told him everything that had happened the last time, but I wasn't particularly interested in repeating that, so I only gave him a vague reply.

"Lots and lots of monsters," I said. "We're driving Grover crazy with it."

"I wish I could be there," Luke told me. "We can't help much from here, I'm afraid, but listen ... it had to be Hades who took the master bolt. He was there at Olympus at the winter solstice. I was chaperoning a field trip and we saw him."

"But gods can't take each other's magic items directly," I denied. "Wait, shouldn't that mean that one of the demigods that were there should be the one responsible for the theft?"

"That's true," Luke said, looking troubled, most likely afraid that I would suspect him. "Still ... It would have been impossible for a demigod unless you could turn invisible."

My eyes hardened. "Annabeth would never do that," I told him in a cold voice.

"Oh, hey," he protested. "I didn't mean Annabeth. She and I have known each other forever. She would never ... I mean, she's like a little sister to me."

I didn't answer him. If I did, I would surely say something I shouldn't. I was sure he had meant it exactly as he implied. He was still trying to seed doubt about Annabeth in my mind. Like telling me that the Athena cabin was siding with Zeus. I might have believed it back then, but now? As if they would side with anyone but their cabin counselor, who had sided with me, was on a quest to clear Poseidon's name with me. And the Aphrodite cabin joining a pointless fight? Hades would sooner freeze over than that happening.

Luke seemed to realize that he said the wrong thing because he started to look really uneasy.

"Did at least the flying shoes do some good? I would feel better if they fit you and were helpful," he asked trying to switch subjects.

"They were quite useful," I answered, and it wasn't even a lie. "Thank you for lending them to us."

"I'm glad," he said grinning. "Then we better end it here, wouldn't want to put Grover and Annabeth in danger. Tell them I said hi, and wished you luck, and tell Grover this time will be better. Nobody will be turned into a pine tree if he just concentrates on staying on the main path, without trying to find any shortcuts."

I cut the mist off, not wanting to hear any more of him. Next to me, Annabeth ripped her cap off her head, looking as angry as I felt.

"I can't believe it," she seethed. "Nobody would have turned into a pine tree if he hadn't seen the need to prove himself and challenge every monster we met, but of course he is giving Grover the fault for everything that happened. And of course, he implies that I was the thief. Dirty, rotten liar."

"We knew that already," I said, trying to calm Annabeth down again. "But there's one thing I'm interested in. What was the conflict about last time? I never found out."

"Oh that. It was only between the Ares and Athena cabins, the rest stayed out of it. Clarisse was just picking a fight with my siblings, nothing special really. Though I'm interested in what the conflict was about this time. Our relationship with Clarisse is surprisingly good after the training we did with her." Annabeth said before she snorted. "He was right about the similarity to the Trojan War though, even if his facts were completely wrong-"

"Wait," I interrupted. "That was wrong too? I mean granted, I don't know as much about that as you do, but wasn't that how the sides were? Ares, Aphrodite, and Apollo against Athena?"

"Yes, but she wasn't supporting Zeus. Remember the dream, Zeus was officially neutral. There were a few others on both sides, but the two main allies of her and the Greek were Hera and Poseidon."

"They were working there together too?" I asked incredulously. "Seriously, what is their relationship? I mean they are supposed to be rivals and fight a lot, but in the next instance they perfectly work together as if nothing ever happened."

Annabeth suddenly laughed. "True, but if you believe Grover, that sounds just like us, like we were."

Just like we were? That did actually make sense. We always had each other's back during battle, no matter how annoyed we were at each other. A sudden thought struck me. I told Annabeth about the request the Nereid had given me. The one I had kept to myself until now.

After I finished, I asked, "Annabeth, what Medusa said … And the familiar feeling Allapsar gives us … And then there is the way the snake looked … Do you think…"

I didn't finish that line of thought. That couldn't be possible, right? It would be the opposite of everything I ever heard.

Annabeth looked uneasy and deep in thought. "I… I don't know. Let's… not talk about that now." She shook her head as if to clear her mind. "Back to the subject at hand, what I meant earlier, was that Ares had broken his promise of supporting the Greeks, switching to the other side, just how he turned against us in this event."

I followed her lead and focused back on what we were talking about before. You could look at it like this, couldn't you? But it also reminded me, that we should go about now.

"We still follow the plan?" I asked, and upon seeing her nodding I added, "Then let's meet with the others again."

We started walking back to the others in silence, and I decided to loosen up the mood again.

"Hey, at least we heard about something helpful that Zeus did for a change. Preventing Thalia from dying by turning her into a pine." I said jokingly, but then frowned and turned to Annabeth when she didn't react. "Don't tell me that was someone else as well?"

"Well, it wasn't really that helpful for Thalia, right? I mean, he could have done literally anything else to actually save her. The focus of that action was actually not really in helping her, but in creating a barrier around camp," she explained. "But if it had been Zeus, he would have created an oak tree, that's the tree sacred to him."

"Then whose sacred tree is the pine?"

"There are two gods I know of who could be possible, and the first one is your father actually. He saw that not even camp could protect a child from the broken oath, so he could have decided to create the barrier for the time when you go to Camp. But that would have been really walking on the edge of what should be allowed, doing it for his own gain like this. The other possibility is Dionysus."

"Dionysus," I said after a while. "That sounds like something he would do."

Annabeth nodded. "Yeah, he clearly couldn't interfere against Hades, but prevent Thalia from completely dying and protecting camp with that action? Nobody would be able to complain about it, he is the camp director after all, and we know he only pretends not caring about what happens to camp and us."

A few minutes later, we were sitting at a booth in the same gleaming chrome diner as last time. Grover was sitting next to Annabeth, and I next to Allapsar. We had put both of them on the seats next to the wall.

The waitress came over and raised her eyebrow skeptically. "Well?"

Which was highly unnecessary in my opinion. I mean sure, the only kind of shower we had taken was from fountain or river water, but we didn't look that bad. We were even dressed in our clean reserve clothes since we never lost our supplies this time.

"We want to order dinner," I told her.

"You kids have money to pay for it?"

Of course, is what I wanted to say, and it was true, we actually still had quite a bit of money left, but I never got to it, because a rumble shook the whole building, and a motorcycle the size of a baby elephant pulled up to the curb.

All conversation in the diner stopped. The motorcycle's headlight glared red. Its gas tank had flames painted on it, and a shotgun holster riveted to either side, complete with shotguns, the seat made from Caucasian human skin.

Accompanied with hot dry wind, the familiar form of Ares entered the diner. He was dressed in a red muscle shirt and black jeans and a black leather duster, with a hunting knife strapped to his thigh. He wore red wraparound shades, on his cruel, brutal face, with an oily black crew cut and scarred cheeks. He was one of the gods I disliked the most out of all of them.

I could feel the aura that put all the people in a trance when he entered, could feel my anger, resentment, and bitterness spike. I hardly noticed the people go back to their conversations, the waitress repeating her question, right until he had scared her back to the kitchen.

It was difficult because my anger at the gods had grown so much because of the events during the Battle of Manhattan and our recent discoveries, but I was able to calm myself down again. Annabeth and Grover looked both fine, but I could feel Allapsar tense next to me, so I put her hand in mine to calm her down. There hadn't been any room in our booth, so he had snapped his finger and made a huge chair, a similar design to his motorcycle, appear.

I said the friendliest – which frankly wasn't that friendly – thing to him I could muster, "Ares, is there a special reason for you to be here?"

He gave me a wicked grin. "So you're old Seaweed's kid, huh?" he stated. "And you already know who I am. That's good."

I was pretty sure that rolling my eyes and telling him he looked like an uglier, and stupider version of Clarisse would make Annabeth cross with me, so I settle for thinking it.

Instead, I said, "You're not here because of us winning against your cabin, are you? Because it would be really embarrassing, having you fight your kids fights for them. Almost as embarrassing as having them fight your own fights for you."

Ares grinned and took off his shades, showing his empty sockets glowing with miniature nuclear explosions. "You're lucky you met me, punk, and not one of the other Olympians. They're not as forgiving of rudeness as I am. I don't mind a little attitude. Long as you remember who's the boss, little cousin. What I'm here for—I heard you were in town. I got a little proposition for you."

The waitress returned and I waited until Ares had scared her off again – knowing there was no point in lecturing him – I replied to his previous statement.

"We are kinda on a slightly important quest to find Zeus master bolt. Whatever can be important enough to delay us and risk your father's anger?"

Ares's fiery eyes made me see things I didn't want to see, but left me cold, as I had seen them too often already – blood and smoke and corpses on the battlefield. "I know all about your quest, punk. When that item was first stolen, Zeus sent his best out looking for it: Apollo, Athena, Artemis, and me, naturally. If I couldn't sniff out a weapon that powerful ..." He licked his lips in hunger at that thought. "Well ... if I couldn't find it, you got no hope. Nevertheless, I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt. So I will give you this opportunity to prove yourself. And hey, I'm a generous guy. Just do my little job, and I'll help you on your way. I'll arrange a ride west for you and your friends."

"We have no problems in arranging a ride west on our own." I denied. "And why should I believe that you are on our side?"

"Your dad and I go way back. After all, I'm the one who told him my suspicions about old Corpse Breath. Framing somebody to start a war. Oldest trick in the book. I recognized it immediately. In a way, you got me to thank for your little quest. Help me out, and maybe I'll tell you something you need to know. Something about your mom."

Now was the point I had to be careful what I said. Annabeth and I had figured that he would be less suspicious if I was the one making the deal about our quest. I had the most reason to accept the quest after all, and it would be less conspicuous of what we were trying to do. Especially if I appeared to be influenced by his aura.

"What exactly do you want us to do?" I asked.

He grinned. "That got your attention. There is an abandoned water park a mile west on Delancy. You can't miss it. It's nothing much. I was going on a little ... date with my girlfriend. We were interrupted. I left my shield behind. I want you to fetch it for me. Look for the Tunnel of Love ride. I'll meet you back here when you're done."

I frowned and tried to look thoughtful and not like I was saying something pre-planed.

"So let's get this right. You want us to fetch your shield for you – from whatever trap Hephaestus has prepared – and in exchange, we have an open favor from you and you are willing to tell us something we really want to know, but don't? And then you meet us, when I'm ready to go back here?"

"Exactly. Now don't disap-"

"Then let's swear it on the River Styx," I interrupted him. "That's what you are supposed to do when making an agreement, right? That's my final condition. There should be no problem with that, right? Or is there?"

I could see him suppress annoyance and anger at my impertinence.

"I will find and return the God of War Ares' shield under the named conditions, I swear it on the River Styx," I said, and thunder boomed outside.

"I swear on the River Styx to adhere to the conditions," he ground out, and thunder boomed again, proving that our oaths had been accepted.

I could feel him attempting to put everyone into a trance, and could see that except for me, only Annabeth had been able to resist it. Everyone else in the diner just stared into nothing. Ares bared his teeth at us upon realizing it hadn't worked, but I'd seen his threatening look before and could tell that it was false, and he was nervous.

"Don't disappoint me," he growled and then left, driving off with his motorcycle again.

"Was that ok?" I quietly asked Annabeth and she nodded.

The trance lifted.

"Not good," Grover said, looking alarmed. "Ares sought you out, Percy. This is not good."

"Let's eat first," Annabeth said. "Who knows when we will next get the chance, then finish this and find a ride west."

I felt Allapsar tightly press my hand and looked down on her, giving me the familiar feeling again. What just happened had left her eyes slightly dilated in fear, but there was also something else in it. Deviance. Her strange eyes, a familiar green outer ring, and an inner ring that looked almost stormy grey in the light. In between, the colors mixed, like two different forces uniting.

A child born against an oath on the River Styx suffers their parent's mistake, huh?

I smiled down at her and patted her head, making her give me a huge smile in return.

"She's right," I said. "Let's try to finish this before it gets dark."

We had an easier time finding the water park this time. If we didn't take too much time, we could finish this event and the one we had planned afterward, and still make it in time to catch the animal transport to Las Vegas. Grover used his shoes to bring himself and Allapsar inside, while Annabeth and I had to climb in the old-fashioned way, holding down the barbed wire for each other as we crawled over the top.

The park was still as deserted as last time, and the names of the attractions of the park were still as terrible. When we reached the souvenir shop we threw away our most damaged stuff and exchanged it with new ones, which included Allapsar's entire outfit and a full backpack. This time I followed Annabeth's lead and we packed rubber balls for Annabeth's three-headed furry friend we would surely meet in the Underworld.

It was still strange though. I mean, if the park got closed, shouldn't they take away the merchandise as well? And even if they didn't, how come all that stuff hadn't been plundered yet, even though the park had been deserted for long enough to already start falling apart? I had seen gods create stuff out of nothing, but it wasn't Ares' style to give us free stuff that hadn't had a purpose for himself. And this clearly helped nobody but us.

It was on my mind all the way until a sign announced we had reached our goal. THRILL RIDE O' LOVE: THIS IS NOT YOUR PARENTS' TUNNEL OF LOVE! was what it read. Around the rim of a bowl-shaped, at least fifty yards across, and empty pool perfect for skateboarding, a dozen bronze statues of Cupid stood guard with wings spread and bows ready to fire.

Grover crept toward the edge. "Guys, look."

Marooned at the bottom of the pool was a pink-and-white two-seater boat with a canopy over the top and little hearts painted all over it. In the left seat, glinting in the fading light, was Ares's shield, a polished circle of bronze.

"That's clearly a trap," I said, looking at Grover. "You're the Red Baron, our flying ace, it would be best if you and Allapsar stay up here and keep watch. Annabeth and I will head down and fetch the shield."

"I'm not some helpless little girl!" Allapsar pouted. "I want to do something important too."

I suppressed a smile, looking at the helpless-looking little girl in front of me.

"But taking watch is the most important part," Annabeth said. "You have to protect us from all threats while we fetch the shield, you know."

"Really?"

"Of course," Grover said. "Those two would be helpless without us. Come on, let's scout our surroundings."

With that Annabeth and I were alone, sharing an amused look, before concentrating on our task again.

"Not too embarrassed to be seen on the 'Thrill Ride of Love' with me, Wise Girl?" I teased her.

"I hope you don't count that as a date, Seaweed Brain," she shot back. "Because then I might need to think about our relationship again."

I laughed, but then got serious again.

"You know, I really can't see it," I said. "I mean I have met Aphrodite before, but I really can't picture her seeing this as a good location for a date. There are better-suited places that are out-of-the-way than this. Ares is clearly not the smartest god around, but not even he can think this is a good place for a date, right?"

We started our climb down, Annabeth looking thoughtful after what I said, so I decided to tell her of my suspicion.

"I feel as something doesn't make sense. This quest is only for Ares to palm the lightning bolt off on us, right? But how convenient is it, that they just happen to have a date and be caught by Hephaestus in the very city we make a stop?"

I could see Annabeth's mind working, so I didn't expect an answer and just kept on talking. By now we had already reached the boat, that was surrounded by mirrors again. In the boat laid a pink lady's silk scarf. I thought about what we had learned about doing stuff for the gods.

"You think we could ask a favor from Aphrodite if we return her scarf to her?" I asked. "Because then I definitely would ask her not to mess with our love life anymore, I really had enough of that."

It was just a harmless joke, but next to me Annabeth sharply inhaled and came to a stop.

"That's it," she said.

"Return the scarf so she doesn't mess with our love life?" I asked slightly confused.

She shook her head. "No, you have met her before, so what would you think she would do if she came to ride the 'Thrill Ride of Love' with Ares and finds this instead?"

I blinked. "She would be annoyed at him and leave?"

"Exactly! Which means Hephaestus wouldn't get the chance to surprise them at all, so why is her scarf here? I mean it is possible that they stayed, and the plan was leaked for Hephaestus to interrupt them, but does that sound like a plan Kronos would make? He is controlling Ares, but there is just so much that could go wrong with it."

I frowned. "Then what do you think happened?"

"He made Ares botch up his date with Aphrodite on purpose, and then have him offer something to make it up to her. You said something about Aphrodite messing with our love life. Making the children of the two rivals Athena and Poseidon fall in love, she would jump on something like that."

She pointed at the scarf in the boat. "She probably wanted Ares to prepare something for us. Like we have to row in a boat to recover it, and then would be affected by the love magic on it. And Ares was the one to give us the quest instead of herself, because who would suspect Ares of thinking about something complex like this? He can't of course, but Kronos would have no problem playing her, he just loves to do stuff like this."

Well, that sounded believable enough, except for one thing.

"Then what about Hephaestus' traps?"

She shrugged. "Hephaestus surprised Ares while Ares was busy preparing and forced him to leave his shield behind. If you think back, only the shield was trapped, not the scarf. Hephaestus either wanted to help Aphrodite or decided he better not mess with one of her love plans."

"There is water in the pipes," I realized. "Something I could easily use. And what attacked us were mechanical spiders. Something a child of Athena would surely be scared of. You were frozen in fright, but even then, the spiders injured neither of us and were easily killed. They would be absolutely no danger to a god fighting them off, and could most likely be destroyed all in one attack."

I thought about what could have been the reasons behind it. "If we instead were to only fetch the scarf nothing would happen, but Ares would have to come himself and walk through the tunnel of love alone. That would be more embarrassing than anything else for him. Mabe the cameras even already start the moment the trap is triggered."

"The situation looks as if it was specifically created for us," Annabeth affirmed while packing away Aphrodite's scarf.

"Then let's hope nothing changed this time," I said. "You ready?"

I could see Annabeth shudder slightly. She wasn't as afraid of spiders as she used to, but she clearly wasn't happy to have to face them. Nevertheless, she nodded.

The moment I touched the shield, I could feel the fine metal fiber connected to it rip. Noise erupted all around us, of a million gears grinding, the sound of the whole pool turning into one giant machine.

"Guys!" „Percy, Annabeth!"

The other two were calling for us, but the Cupid statues were already firing arrows with silky cables at each other, forming a huge golden asterisk, smaller metallic threads starting to weave together magically between the main strands, making a net.

We didn't try to run and get out of the net this time. We climbed into the boat, back to back, looking for potential new threats. I concentrated on the water in the pipes, preparing to unleash it at a moment's notice. I saw Grover pull Allapsar back when he realized they couldn't risk touching the net without it wrapping around their hands, and that we didn't try to run.

The Cupids' heads popped open and revealed the hidden video cameras. Spotlights rose up all around the pool, blinding us with illumination, and a loudspeaker voice boomed: "Live to Olympus in one minute … Fifty-nine seconds, fifty-eight …"

The row of mirrors opened like hatches and a thousand tiny metallic spiders poured out, all scuttling toward us in a wave of clacking, whirring metal.

I could feel Annabeth tense, but only for the moment, it took me to open the flood gates, unleashing the water out of the pipes. It roared into the pool, sweeping away the spiders. We sat down into the seats, fastening our seat belts just as the tidal wave slammed into our boat.

"Thirty, twenty-nine," called the loudspeaker.

The water was full of short-circuiting spiders, some of them bursting upon smashing into the concrete walls. I controlled the water enough to prevent the wave from going over the top of us, keeping us dry, and held our boat still in midst of the whirlpool around us. The water level was high enough to be usable later, but if it rose much further it would shred us against the metal net, so I started to push the excessive water in direction of the tunnel leading to the exit while keeping us in place.

"Fifteen, fourteen," the loudspeaker called.

There was no new water coming anymore now. Without the source, it was easy enough to calm the raging water down again.

"Two, one, zero!"

Spotlights glared down at us. The Cupid-cams were rolling, live to Olympus.

We were in the middle of the pool, our boat gently rocking. I created a small current, pushing our boat in direction of the tunnel and we drifted into the darkness. Annabeth and my eyes met.

I gave her a lopsided grin. "I know that wouldn't be anywhere on our list of potential dating sites, but we might as well enjoy the ride while we're here."

Annabeth shook her head but returned my smile, and I have to say, while the ride was a lot more relaxing, all that Romeo and Juliet, and other Valentine's Day stuff wasn't any more romantic in my opinion. Especially considering that there was water dripping from the ceiling and a lot of it had been damaged by the water I pushed away earlier.

"Gods, that's so corny. I didn't expect much with the name and all, but it's no wonder they went out of order," Annabeth voiced what I had been thinking.

At least the golden Gates of Love had been ripped open by the force of the water and so we sailed peacefully in the exit pool. I ordered the ship to the side and acted the part of a good gentleman and helped Annabeth out after me. She rolled her eyes at my antics but accepted my help.

Once we were both back on land, we turned to the entrance pool, where the Cupids were still filming. The statues had swiveled so that their cameras were trained straight on us, the spotlights in our faces.

"Show's over!" I yelled. "Thank you! Good night!"

The Cupids turned back to their original positions. The lights shut off. The park went quiet and dark again, except for the gentle trickle of water into the Thrill Ride of Love's exit pool. I wondered what Olympus would think of our relationship, and if it was enough for Aphrodite to leave us alone in the future. I didn't have high hopes.

"I want to go too!" a hyped-up voice called. "That looked like it was fun."

Grover and Allapsar had come over. Grover looked just glad that nothing had happened but didn't say anything.

"Sure," I answered smiling. "But not today. We can do that after our quest ok?"

The young girl beamed at me. "Yay!" she cheered before she turned shy. "But can we do that without the S-S-Sp- the ugly, evil critters? It's not like I'm scared of them or anything. Really… I just don't like them is all."

Annabeth and I shared a meaningful look with each other, and it was Grover who answered.

"Of course," he said. "But how about we go back now and put that entire thing behind us?"

I shook my head. "I can't," I answered, being careful about my choice of words. "I'm not ready to go back yet."

Grover frowned. "Why? What's still left th-"

Annabeth interrupted, "You shall go west and trick the god who has turned."

It took a moment until he realized what those words meant, and he froze. Allapsar tilted her head and looked confused between us.

"The way I worded it, he will come here when I'm ready to leave. We'll meet you at the diner again. Try if you can find us something that can act as a ride for us," I told him.

I saw Annabeth pull Allapsar to the side to explain it to her and I used the opportunity to step next to Grover.

"The Nereid I met in St. Louis," I whispered giving him a meaningful look. "She asked me to take good care of Allapsar."

This time Grover realized immediately what that meant.

He grimaced. "I suspected," he admitted. "But her scent is so strange, I didn't want to say anything until I knew for sure."

I could understand. I had decided not to tell him about Annabeth and my suspicion about who her godly parent, or rather parents really were until we had confirmation from them as well.

"Take care of her for me," I said.

He nodded. "Make sure you don't make us wait for too long, and please try not to die."

Annabeth and I watched standing inside the abandoned water park until we couldn't see the other two anymore. Ares shield still in my hands.

"You ready?" I asked.

"Yes," she answered. "It's time to claim what was stolen."

A few moments later, we could hear the roaring sound of an approaching motorcycle.