Aside from the usual things I say in my A/N's, thank you all for being understanding and supportive of me, and I can't wait to write more.

I Go Ice Skating With A Pig

Percy's POV

We'd arrived on the outskirts of a little ski town nestled in the mountains. The sign said WELCOME TO CLOUDCROFT, NEW MEXICO. The air was cold and thin. The roofs of the cabins were heaped with snow, and dirty mounds of it were piled up on the sides of the streets. Tall pine trees loomed over the valley, casting pitch-black shadows, though the morning was sunny. Sunny, but freezing. Especially with how I only had a short-sleeved shirt on, but no jacket. I was freezing by the time we got to Main Street, which was about half a mile from the train tracks. It made me kinda wished I didn't give Zoe the Nemeon Lion coat after all. As we walked, Grover, Annabeth, and Thalia all tried to get me in on a conversation with them. Anything just for the sake to hear me speak, which I refused by keeping my responses short with a few words or just an expression on my face. I was still pissed about being on the quest, and I was gonna be pissed about it until it was over.

Also, I kept thinking of how Apollo told me to seek out Nereus in San Francisco. If it were for the sake of getting back to my pregnant girlfriend and ending this quest, I was all for it. Problem was though it meant that we had a deadline looming, aside from saving Artemis in time for her council of the gods. Which was the winter solstice. That was Friday, only four days away. And to make matters worse, I still had no idea who this general was or what exactly his plans were, which was making the harder and longer than what it already had to be, and that made me even angrier.

Eventually, we stopped in the middle of town. You could pretty much see everything from there: a school, a bunch of tourist stores and cafes, some ski cabins, and a grocery store.

"Great. No bus stations. No taxis. No car rental. No way out." Thalia said, looking around.

"There's a coffee shop!" Grover said.

"Yes. Coffee is good." Zoe said.

"And pastries. And wax paper." Grover said dreamily, making me sigh with a pinch of the bridge of my nose and a shake of my head.

"Fine. You four go get some food. I'll check in the grocery store. Maybe someone can give us directions." I said and left, not leaving any room for a second opinion.

Inside the store, I found out a few things about Cloudcroft: there wasn't enough snow for skiing, the grocery store sold rubber rats for a dollar each, and there was no easy way in or out of town unless you had your own car. How helpful *Note the sarcasm*.

"You could call for a taxi from Alamogordo. That's down at the bottom of the mountains, but it would take at least an hour to get here. Cost several hundred dollars." The clerk said doubtfully.

"Great." I sighed in a growl.

But with how the clerk looked so lonely, I wasn't gonna take it out on him.

"Alright, thanks." I said, offering him a tip for trying to help and then left.

Once outside, I just sat against the porch railing and crossed my arms with a sigh and just waited where I was for the others. As much as I wanted to get this quest over with, I wasn't dump enough to go on my own and make it easier for monsters to kill me.

"Hey Percy." Annabeth said, bringing me out of my thoughts, with Thalia by her side.

"Hey." I replied.

"Anything?" Thalia asked.

"No." I answered.

Annabeth and Thalia both joined me in sitting against the porch railing. They both looked like they both wanted to say something to me but didn't know how to say it. Not that I wanted to hear anything from them altogether anyways. I mean, seriously. Was it really so hard for them and everyone else at camp to understand the simple fact that I had a huge responsibility now? Was it too much to ask people to understand the simple fact that the baby that Clarisse and I were preparing for was supposed to be the most important thing right now and that we shouldn't have to be worrying about anything else right now?

"You okay Percy?" Annabeth asked, placing a hand on my shoulder and looked at me like she wanted assurance that I was okay.

"I'll be better when I get back at camp so Clarisse and I can get back to preparing for our baby." I answered.

There was a moment of silence after that.

"Clarisse is very lucky to be with you Percy." Thalia offered.

For half of me, the compliment took me by surprise. For the other half of me though, I felt like that was probably the smartest thing I've heard Thalia say ever.

"Not as lucky as I am to have her. She truly is one hell of a woman." I said, feeling a little of the uneasiness and stress in me settle down.

"Even though she doesn't even deserve you with how much of a selfish bitch she's been to you for so long." Annabeth commented.

At that comment, the stress and uneasiness in me skyrocketed again. My hands clenched the hold they had on my arms, turning them white. And the side of my face that was hidden from the girls started to twitch. Annabeth spoke quite a poor choice of words. Regardless of how she was right about how Clarisse treated me at first, the past meant nothing to me. I was with Clarisse, Clarisse was with me, and we had a baby on the way. Annabeth had no right to insult Clarisse like that.

From my peripheral vision, a couple hundred yards away, Grover and Zoe came out of the coffee shop loaded down with pastry bags and drinks. For Annabeth's sake, those had better get over here so we could get a move on, or else I might just snap and go apeshit on Annabeth's ass.

"Was she really that bad to Percy Annabeth?" Thalia asked.

If this conversation didn't come to an end very soon, then forget going apeshit on Annabeth. I was gonna kill the both of them.

"She was the worst kind of bully. And Percy was always her favorite punching bag. The disrespect to the savior of Olympus was just unacceptable." Annabeth answered.

"She doesn't seem that way at all to me. A little edgy and literal compared to others, but she doesn't seem to be like that." Thalia commented.

"Only because she's getting used to being with child. I wouldn't put it past her to go back to be the way she was before she got knocked up." Annabeth commented.

With how I was getting even angrier with how Annabeth wouldn't shut the fuck up; I didn't have to worry about the cold weather anymore. Because I was getting so angry, that my body was now only shaking because I was reaching my breaking point. I was already snapping and crackling, and I was only a few steps away from popping. How neither Annabeth or Thalia could detect my agitation made me more angry.

"So, she's apparently a typical daughter of Ares, huh?" Thalia stated.

"More like the worst ever." Annabeth commented.

At that, I popped. And I would've yelled and maybe even throttle them both, had the others not returned.

"Hey Thalia. Hey Annabeth. Hey Percy." Grover greeted.

Annabeth was saved from me most likely shutting her up permanently when Zoe and Grover arrived with the drinks and pastries. Hot chocolate me, Annabeth, and Thalia. Coffee for the two of them. I got a blueberry muffin, and it helped ignore the outrage inside of me, but only a little. I still wanted to throttle Annabeth so badly.

"What's with you?" Zoe asked me with a raised eyebrow.

"Nothing you need to be concerned about." I answered before taking another bite of my muffin.

Zoe didn't look convinced, but she seemed to know that I wasn't gonna say anything more, so she let it go. For a girl that wasn't a DAUGHTER OF Athena, she seemed a lot smarter than Annabeth.

"We should do the tracking spell. Grover, do you have any acorns left?" Zoe asked Grover, who was chewing on a bran muffin, wrapper and all.

"Umm, I think so. I just need to . . ." He started and then froze.

Suddenly, a warm breeze rustled past, like a gust of springtime had gotten lost in the middle of winter. Fresh air seasoned with wildflowers and sunshine. And something else, almost like a voice, trying to say something. A warning.

"Grover, thy cup." Zoe gasped.

Grover dropped his coffee cup, which was decorated with pictures of birds. Suddenly the birds, a flock of tiny doves, peeled off the cup and flew away. My rubber rat squeaked. It scampered off the railing and into the trees, with real fur and real whiskers. Grover collapsed next to his coffee, which steamed against the snow. The girls all gathered around him and tried to wake him up. I just remained how I was with an unamused expression on my face. He groaned, his eyes fluttering.

"Hey, what's wrong with Grover?" Thalia asked.

"He collapsed." I said, being a smart ass.

"Well, get him up!" Thalia said.

"He's fine. He's just being weird. Well, weirder than usual." I commented.

After that, all hell started to break loose. Which is why Thalia had her spear in her hand. She looked behind her as if she were being followed. Which lead to Annabeth drawing out her dagger and Zoe getting her bow out and loaded.

"We have to get out of here." Thalia said.

We made it to the edge of the town before the first two skeleton warriors appeared. They stepped from the trees on either side of the road. They were wearing blue New Mexico State Police uniforms, had transparent gray skin, and yellow eyes. They drew their handguns and had them ready to fire at us with. I'll admit I used to think it would be kind of cool to learn how to shoot a gun, but I changed my mind as soon as the skeleton warriors pointed theirs at me. Which made me wonder for a second if Clarisse was ever into stuff like that, being the daughter of the god of war and everything.

Thalia tapped her bracelet. Aegis spiraled to life on her arm, but the warriors didn't flinch. Their glowing yellow eyes bored right into me. I drew Riptide, though I wasn't sure what good it would do against guns. Zoe drew her bow, and Annabeth drew her dagger while Grover kept swooning and leaning against her.

"Back up," Thalia said.

We started to, but then I heard a rustling of branches. Two more skeletons appeared on the road behind us. We were surrounded. I wondered where the other skeletons were. I'd seen a dozen at the Smithsonian. Then one of the warriors raised a cell phone to his mouth and spoke into it. Except he wasn't speaking. He made a clattering, clicking sound, like dry teeth on bone. I then understood what was going on. The skeletons had split up to look for us. These skeletons were now calling their brethren. Soon we'd have a full party on our hands.

"It's near, the gift. The gift from the Wild." Grover moaned.

At this point, I was starting to quickly lose my patience.

"Well?" I asked, implying that we stop standing around, doing nothing.

"We'll have to go one-on-one. Four of them. Four of us. Maybe they'll ignore Grover that way." Thalia said.

"Agreed," Zoe said.

"It's too risky. They could still take us be surprise." Annabeth argued.

"The Wild!" Grover moaned.

"Oh, for fucks sake." I went, deciding to just do this on my own.

That was when the skeletons fired at us. But before any of the bullets could hit anyone, I was able to shield everyone. I guess you could say I triggered my avatar state, if you've ever seen the Nickelodeon cartoon "Avatar: The Last Airbender". Even though there was no body of water, snow and ice were technically frozen snow. So, I used the snow around us to create bodies of water that caught the bullets. Then I froze the bodies of water into giant ice balls, and threw them at the skeletons, crushing them and turning them into a pile of bones. Their bones unknit and clattered to the asphalt in a heap.

"Percy, how did you do that?" Thalia asked, shocked.

"Something you can thank your half-brother Ares for." I answered.

While the girls seemed pretty amazed at what I did, Grover stood there and held his hands out to the trees, looking like he wanted to hug them. There was a crashing sound in the forest to our left, like a bulldozer. Guessing the skeletons' reinforcements were arriving, I got ready for round two. The reinforcements had come, which were more skeletons. Zoe tried to stop them by firing at their heads point-blank, only for the arrows to just whistle straight through their empty skulls. As the skeletons were about to open fire, I brought bodies of snow on them and turned them into ice, freezing them into place.

"How did you do that?" Zoe asked.

"Son of Poseidon, duh." I answered.

Just then, the trees behind the frozen skeletons were shivering. Branches were cracking.

"A gift." Grover muttered.

And then, with a mighty roar, the largest pig I'd ever seen came crashing into the road. It was a wild boar, thirty feet high, with a snotty pink snout and tusks the size of canoes. Its back bristled with brown hair, and its eyes were wild and angry. It squealed as it raked the frozen skeletons aside with its tusks. The force was so great, they broke into many little pieces as they went flying over the trees and into the side of the mountain, where they smashed into even more pieces, broken bones and ice shards scattered everywhere. Then the pig turned on us. I was ready to strike it down.

"Don't kill it!" Grover yelled.

The boar grunted and pawed the ground, ready to charge.

"That's the Erymanthian Boar. I don't think we can kill it." Zoe said, trying to stay calm.

"It's a gift. A blessing from the Wild!" Grover said.

The boar squealed and swung its tusk. Zoe and Annabeth dived out of the way. I had to push Grover so he wouldn't get launched into the mountain on the Boar Tusk Express.

"Oh yeah, it's a hell of a blessing, shit for brains! Scatter!" I said.

We ran in different directions, and for a moment the boar was confused.

"It wants to kill us!" Thalia said.

"Of course. It's wild!" Grover said.

"So how is that a blessing?" Annabeth asked.

"It's not! It's Grover being a fucking idiot, and that overgrown porkchop wanting revenge for mankind eating it's kind!" I answered.

The pig was offended and charged me. I rolled out of the way of its hooves and came up behind the beast. It lashed out with its tusks and pulverized the WELCOME TO CLOUDCROFT sign. And suddenly, I was starting to feel like I was Hercules right now, what with how I was fighting the Erymanthian Boar right now and fought the Stymphalian Birds not too long ago.

"Keep moving!" Zoe yelled as she and Annabeth ran in opposite directions.

Grover danced around the boar, playing his pipes while the boar snorted and tried to gouge him. But I won the prize for bad luck. Thalia made the mistake of standing by me and raising Aegis in defense. The sight of the Medusa head made the boar squeal in outrage. Maybe it looked too much like one of his relatives. The boar charged us. We only managed to keep ahead of it because we ran uphill, and we could dodge in and out of trees while the boar had to plow through them. As we ran, I found an old stretch of train tracks on the other side of the hill, half buried in the snow. And that gave me an idea. An idea to beat it similar to how Hercules did, with a few of my own twists.

"Come on." I said and grabbed Thalia's arm and with my power of water, had a wave of ice carry us along the rails while the boar roared behind us, slipping and sliding as it tried to navigate the steep hillside.

Its hooves just were not made for this, thank the gods. And thank Ares for recommending that I try this out sometime. Ahead of us, I saw a covered tunnel. Past that, an old trestle bridge spanning a gorge. Which was what I hoped for to put my plan into action.

"Hang on!" I told Thalia.

Even though it wasn't what I meant exactly, she wrapped her arms around my chest and held on tight. Behind us, a ten-ton pig tank was knocking down pine trees and crushing boulders under its hooves as it chased us. I took us into the tunnel, and we came out on the other side.

"No!" Thalia screamed.

She turned as white as ice. We were at the edge of the bridge. Below, the mountain dropped away into a snow-filled gorge about seventy feet below. The boar was right behind us.

"Here we go!" I said.

"Percy, don't!" Thalia yelled, with her eyes were wild with fear.

The boar smashed into the covered tunnel, tearing through at full speed. Thalia looked down and swallowed. I swear she was turning green, like she was gonna be sick. I didn't bother to process why. The boar was charging through the tunnel, straight toward us. It was time to get this thing off our asses. I sent us sideways off the edge of the bridge, into the side of the mountain, sliding over rocks and mud and snow, racing downhill on the wave of ice I had us on. The boar was less fortunate. It couldn't turn that fast, so all the fat of the overgrown lunchmeat charged out onto the tiny trestle, which buckled under its weight. The boar free-fell into the gorge with a mighty squeal and landed in a snowdrift with a huge "BOOM!".

I skidded us to a stop. Thalia had both her arms and legs wrapped tightly around me and was breathing hard. She also had pine needles in her hair. I was feeling a little tired. With how I haven't had too much time to recover from my injuries, I wasn't exactly in the best shape. And the hold Thalia had on me wasn't helping either. Next to us, the wild boar was squealing and struggling. All I could see was the bristly tip of its back. It was wedged completely in the snow like Styrofoam packing. It didn't seem to be hurt, but it wasn't going anywhere, either.

I was very tempted to just kill it. But with how my exhaustion was slowly catching up, I knew I most likely wasn't gonna be able to. So I just froze it in a block of ice, just for the sake of not having to hear it squealing anymore. That being done, I turned at Thalia as I slowly and safely lowered us back to the ground of the mountain.

"You can let go now." I demanded.

Thalia just nodded her head, not saying a word as she slowly let go of me.

"And for the record, you could've told me you're afraid of heights." I commented.

"Don't be stupid." Thalia got out; her eyes had their usual angry look.

"Don't bother wasting my time with your lies and denial. If I'm really wrong, then how about another round down the mountain just for shits and giggles." I threw at her, backing her into a corner.

She knew I had her beat, so she took a deep breath as she brushed the pine needles out of her hair.

"If you tell anyone, I swear . . ." Thalia began.

"Save your threats for someone who gives a fuck." I countered.

"Hello?" Grover called stopping the conversation.

"Down here!" I shouted.

A few minutes later, Zoe, Annabeth, and Grover joined us.

"A blessing of the Wild." Grover said, now looked agitated.

"I agree. We must use it." Zoe said.

"Hold up, explain to me why you're so sure this pig is a blessing." Thalia said irritably.

"It's our ride west. Do you have any idea how fast this boar can travel?" Grover answered.

"Whooped-fucking-doo." I said sarcastically.

"We need to get aboard. I wish, . . . I wish I had more time to look around. But it's gone now." Grover said as he walked over to the boar and jumped onto its back.

"Percy, unfreeze it." Grover asked me to do.

After letting out an irritated sigh, I got the Erymanthian Boar out. Once it broke free, Grover took out his pipes. He started playing a snappy tune and tossed an apple in front of the boar. The apple floated and spun right above the boar's nose, and the boar went nuts, straining to get it.

"Automatic steering. Great." Thalia murmured before trudging over and jumped on behind Grover, which still left plenty of room for the rest of us.

"Thank you Pan." Annabeth whispered and hopped on next.

Zoe then walked toward the boar.

"Come on Percy." Grover said.

Letting out another irritated sigh, I reluctantly got the boar to.

"You better not move your hands anywhere above or below my abdomen." Zoe warned me.

"I have a girlfriend, firstly. Secondly, you ain't worth my time or effort. And thirdly, save your threats for someone who actually gives a fuck." I countered, ending the conversation and getting ready for the ride.

To explain why I haven't been able to update anything for almost a year, I got a new job at Freedom Graphics last year. But I got a 3rd shift position. So I've been struggling with getting used to my new sleeping and work hours. I've tried to write as much as I could, but the new hours were taking a toll on me. Plus, the whole Corona thing has been keeping my family on edge. But things are getting easier, and I'm trying to get back in writing shape. Thank you all for your support and patience, and I'll update again whenever I can. Stay safe fellow readers.