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TheFourthFate4Ever: Thank you for your review as always! :)

Percy P.O.V.

At the edge of the dump, we found a tow truck so old it might've been thrown away itself. But the engine started, and it had a full tank of gas, so we decided to borrow it. Thalia drove. She seemed more stunned than Zoe or Bianca, but she was trying to hide it. So far? She wasn't doing it very well.

"The skeletons are still out there," she reminded us. "We need to keep moving."

She navigated us through the desert, under clear blue skies, the sand so bright it hurt to look at. Bianca sat upfront with Thalia. Zoe and I sat in the pickup bed, leaning against the tow winch. The air was cool and dry, but the nice weather just seemed like an insult after losing-

It hurt to think about it, like every damn bone in my body ached when I did. It was like a piece of me had been stolen from me, taken and I had no chance of seeing it returned. That piece, scattered to the winds.

Like the damn sand beneath me.

My hand closed aggressively around the bed of the truck, making it buckle and squeal beneath it.

What could I have done differently? It was all I could think of, the unending echo of guilt pounded around in my head like a broken record. In honesty there was probably nothing I could have done, Armani wouldn't have stopped just because I asked. And in the end, she saved us, even if she had just gotten us out of there, who knows if the Talos would continue its chase. No, it was better to just leave it at that.

Oh, gods… what was I going to tell mom?

I wanted to believe that Armani was still alive somewhere. But I had a bad feeling that she was gone for good, even if she'd… been gone before. This wasn't an arrow through the head, this was a complete and utter breakdown of her body. You don't just come back from that.

"It should've been me," I said. "I should've been able to stop it- slow it down, anything at all-"

My face suddenly hurt as it took me a moment to register that it was Zoe that had slapped me across the face "Don't say that!" She said, her eyes fixing on glaze on my own. "Never think like that, she sacrificed herself to save us, don't devalue her sacrifice."

I stared at her, my hands limp at my side and my anger abated, "You're right," I nodded, "I just feel so…"

"Defeated?" She answered, her own head hung low.

"Yeah, does it ever…" I hesitated for a moment, thinking about my question before I said it, "get easier?"

"To lose a comrade?"

"We are not comrades," I hissed at her, "We're- we were friends, siblings, there's nothing else you could have called us." I turned away from Zoe, once again looking out over the sand

"Sorry, old habits,"

"Armani is gone, and now we're stranded without any major leads." I punctuated each word, making them stand out like a punch to the gut, and in this case, they definitely felt like it.

Zoe was silent for a moment, her eyes darting back and forth across the open landscape, analyzing, "We never saw her die…"

I felt the anger bubbling in my gut and I looked over at her again, "Zoe, her body broke down into particles. Pretty sure you can't survive being disintegrated."

"Who said she had to survive at all?" Zoe said, her gaze settling on my own as the truck continued forward.

I leaned forward, trying to keep my hands from shaking as I tried to keep myself calm, just like Armani said, anger is a tool but it's only useful when it's necessary. Now definitely wasn't one of those times.

"What are you trying to say, Zoe?" I asked, cringing internally at the harshness of my own voice, I was coming off much gruffer than I meant to.

"What I'm saying Perseus," she put emphasis on my name, "Is that your sister has a knack for not staying dead. I watched her die, in that forest," she sighed, rubbing at her temples, "due to my arrogance. Yet she bounced back like the arrow was never there at all, only a scar to show for it." She trailed off for a moment before shaking her head, "and I'm sure that wasn't the first time, was it?"

Her gaze was not a glare, but more of an inquisitive one as she looked on at me, I shifted slightly under her gaze. What bothered me was her own theory, which was very similar to thoughts I'd had before.

"If it wasn't I wouldn't know…"

"With your reaction towards the hunters, I wouldn't assume so," she snorted, but there was no humor in it, "but you suspected?" She asked.

"Yeah… I did."

We returned to silence as I refused to elaborate any further, and Zoe seemed just fine with that, it was a surprisingly comfortable silence. A moment of peace that I wish I had more of. Something she most likely wished as well.

'Interested?~"

I shook my head roughly, even my own thoughts betrayed me now.

The tow truck quickly ran out of gas at the edge of a river canyon. That was just as well, because the road was dead-ended.

Thalia got out and slammed the door. Immediately, one of the tires blew. "Great. What now?"

I scanned the horizon. There wasn't much to see. Desert in all directions, occasional clumps of barren mountains plopped here and there. The canyon was the only thing interesting. The river itself wasn't very big, maybe fifty yards across, green water with a few rapids, but it carved a huge scar out of the desert. The rock cliffs dropped away below us.

"When there is no path," I said. "make one."

The others stared at me in confusion until they noticed the water steadily rising from the river bed, forming a long staircase downwards. I glanced over at Thalia and saw how pale she'd gotten. Her problem with heights… she'd never be able to do it.

I quickly let my hold in the water go, mock panting, "No," I said. "I can't hold it, maybe we should go farther upstream."

Bianca and Zoe sent me a look which I promptly ignored in favor of walking, "Come on," I said. "A little walk won't hurt us." I glanced at Thalia. Her eyes held a brief 'Thank you.'

We followed the river about half a mile before coming to an easier slope that led down to the water. On the shore was a canoe rental operation that was closed for the season, but I left a stack of golden drachmas on the counter and a note saying IOU two canoes.

"We need to go upstream," Zoe said. Her voice sounded off, much different from her tone and demeanor in the back of the truck. It was worrying, how bad she sounded, like somebody with the flu. "The rapids are too swift."

"Leave that to me," I said. We put the canoes in the water.

Thalia pulled me aside as we were getting the oars. "Thanks for back there."

"Don't mention it." I said, adjusting the canoe slightly.

"Can you really…" She nodded to the rapids. "You know."

"Shouldn't be a problem, usually I'm pretty decent with water." I snarked back

Thalia paused momentarily, "Would you take Zoe?" she asked. "I think, ah, maybe you can talk to her."

"She's not going to like that."

"Please? I don't know if I can be in the same boat with her right now. She's more amicable with you than me, and after… the junkyard, I'm not sure what she's thinking anymore."

I did want to spend more time with Zoe, and it was much, much better than being around Bianca at the moment, so I nodded.

Thalia's shoulders relaxed. "I owe you one."

"More like two." I smirked.

"One and a half," Thalia said.

She smiled, and for a second, I remembered that we got along when she wasn't yelling at me. She turned and helped Bianca get their canoe into the water.

As it turned out, I didn't even need to control the currents. As soon as we got in the river, I looked over the edge of the boat and found a couple of naiads staring at me. They looked like regular teenage girls, the kind you'd see in any mall, except for the fact that they were underwater. Definitely not the weirdest thing I'd seen.

Hey, I said.

They made a bubbling sound that may have been giggling. I wasn't sure. I had a hard time understanding naiads.

We're heading upstream, I told them. Do you think you could—

Before I could even finish, the naiads each chose a canoe and began pushing us up the river. We started so fast Bianca almost fell out of her canoe and into the river below.

"I hate naiads," Zoe grumbled behind me.

A stream of water squirted up from the back of the boat and hit Zoe in the face.

"She-devils!" Zoe went for her bow.

"Whoa there," I said, grabbing at her bow. "They're just playing, they don't mean you any harm, Zoe."

"Cursed water spirits," She grumbled, putting her bow away, "They've never forgiven me."

"Forgiven you for what?"

I couldn't see her behind me, but I could tell her gaze was fixed on the back of my head. "It was a long time ago. Never mind."

We sped up the river, the cliffs looming up on either side of us.

"You know there's nothing we could have done, right?" I asked her. "Nothing could have convinced her to let one of us die instead of her, nothing, not even me." Some part of me thought Zoe would lash out at me. At least that might shake her out of feeling depressed, easier to use anger than to fight your own heart.

Instead, she answered in quiet tones. "No, Percy. I misunderstood her, I was jealous of her. I didn't try to understand anything about her, the hunters are all practically family and she was quite literally related to Artemis, and yet I let my own anger towards the situation blind me. It made me think irrationally and treat her harshly, even if it was only in my head, and I can't help but wonder if I could have done things differently." She trailed off toward the end, I was unsure what to say after that, so I took a shot in the dark.

"You know, you've changed a lot on this quest, you're much more open than when we left camp."

I looked back at her briefly, she was gripping the strap of her quiver. She looked more tired than I'd ever seen her.

"I am not so sure that is a good thing, Percy." Her face was flushed slightly, which I attributed to the pace at which our canoe was moving in the water.

"Look, I get it, trust me I really do."

"I—"

"Zoe, stop. Let's be honest, do you think any of us could have fought that Talos and won? Armani was probably the strongest of us, but even she has limits. I'm sure she'd be glad just to know that we all made it out, even you."

Zoe didn't answer.

The cliffs along the river were getting taller. Long shadows fell across the water, making it a lot colder, even though the day was bright. Without thinking about it, I took Riptide out of my pocket. Zoe looked at the pen, and her expression was pained.

"You made this," I said.

"Who told thee?" She said, slipping back into her old way of speaking, which she seemed to do when she was stressed.

"I had a dream about it."

She studied me. I was sure she was going to call me crazy, but she just sighed. "It was a gift. And a mistake."

"Who was the hero?" I asked.

Zoe shook her head. "Do not make me say his name. I swore never to speak it again."

"You act like I should know him."

"I am sure you do, hero. Don't all you boys want to be just like him?"

Her voice was so bitter, I decided not to ask what she meant. I looked down at Riptide, and for the first time, I wondered if it was cursed.

"Well if it makes you that uncomfortable," I stashed it back in my pocket, "then I can just use something else to fight, I'm no one-trick pony after all."

Zoe looked at me like I'd grown a second head, but nodded in what I assumed was appreciation at the gesture, hopefully, she actually believed I was being genuine.

"Your mother was a water goddess?" I asked after a moment.

"Yes, Pleione. She had five daughters. My sisters and I. The Hesperides."

"Those were the girls who lived in a garden at the edge of the West. With the golden apple tree and a dragon guarding it."

"Yes," Zoe said wistfully. "Ladon."

"But weren't there only four sisters'?"

"There are now. I was exiled. Forgotten. Blotted out as if I never existed."

"Why?"

Zoe pointed to my pen in my pocket. "Because I betrayed my family and helped a hero. You won't find that in the legend either. He never spoke of me. After his direct assault on Ladon failed, I gave him the idea of how to steal the apples, how to trick my father, but he took all the credit."

"But—"

Gurgle, gurgle, the naiad spoke in my mind. The canoe was slowing down.

I looked ahead, and I saw why.

This was as far as they could take us. The river was blocked. A dam the size of a football stadium stood in our path.

"Hoover Dam," Thalia said. "It's huge."

We stood at the river's edge, looking up at a curve of concrete that loomed between the cliffs. People were walking along the top of the dam. They were so tiny they looked like fleas.

The naiads had left with a lot of grumbling—not in words I could understand, but it was obvious they hated this dam blocking up their nice river. Our canoes floated back downstream, swirling in the wake from the dam's discharge vents.

"Seven hundred feet tall," I said. "Built in the 1930s."

"Five million cubic acres of water," Thalia said.

I sighed, "Oh trust me, I can feel that..."

Zoe stared at us. "How do you know all that?"

"Annabeth," I said, "and Armani a bit, she had a passing interest for architecture."

Thalia nodded, presumably at the Annabeth part. Zoe was still looking at us strangely, but I didn't care.

"We should go up there," I said. "Just to say we've been."

"You are mad," Zoe decided. "But that's where the road is." She pointed to a huge parking garage next to the top of the dam. "And so, sightseeing it is."

We had to walk for almost an hour before we found a path that led up to the road. It came up on the east side of the river. Then we straggled back toward the dam. It was cold and windy on top. On one side, a big lake spread out, ringed by barren desert mountains. On the other side, the dam dropped away like the world's most dangerous skateboard ramp, down to the river seven hundred feet below, and water that churned from the dam's vents.

Thalia walked in the middle of the road, far away from the edges. Zoe kept flinching and looking around. She didn't say anything, so I sidled on over to her.

"You ok?" I asked her.

She shook her head. "After Armani… dissipated. I felt her energy spread very, very far, and when some of it passed over me I started to feel more attuned. I don't know if it's temporary, but I can feel monsters nearby." She cursed under her breath, "We don't have time for this."

I agreed. It was already Wednesday, only two days until the winter solstice, and we still had a long way to go. We didn't need any more monsters,

"There's a snack bar in the visitor center," Thalia said.

"You've been here before?" I asked.

"Once. To see the guardians." She pointed to the far end of the dam. Carved into the side of the cliff was a little plaza with two big bronze statues. They looked kind of like Oscar statues with wings.

"They were dedicated to Zeus when the dam was built," Thalia said. "A gift from Athena."

Tourists were clustered all around them. They seemed to be looking at the statues' feet.

"What are they doing?" I asked.

"Rubbing the toes," Thalia said. "They think it's good luck."

"Why?"

She shook her head. "Mortals get crazy ideas. They don't know the statues are sacred to Zeus, but they know there's something special about them."

"When you were here last, did they talk to you or anything?"

Thalia's expression darkened. I could tell that she'd come here before hoping for exactly that—some kind of sign from her dad. Some connection. "No. They don't do anything. They're just big metal statues."

I thought about the last big metal statue we'd run into. That hadn't gone so well. But I decided not to bring it up.

"Let us find the dam snack bar," Zoe said. "We should eat while we can."

Bianca cracked a smile. "The dam snack bar?"

Zoe blinked. "Yes. What's so funny?"

"Nothing," Bianca said, trying to keep a straight face. "I could use some dam food."

Even Thalia smiled at that. "And I need to use the dam restroom."

Maybe it was the fact that we were so tired and strung out emotionally, but I started cracking up, and Thalia and Bianca joined in, while Zoe just looked at us. "I do not understand."

"I want to use the dam water fountain," Bianca said.

"And…" Thalia tried to catch her breath. "I want to buy a dam T-shirt."

I busted up, and I probably would've kept laughing all day, but then I heard a noise: "Moooo."

The smile melted off my face. I wondered if the noise was just in my head, but Zoe had seemed to notice too. She was looking around, confused. "Did I just hear a cow?"

"A dam cow?" Biaca laughed.

"No," Zoe said. "I'm serious."

Thalia listened. "I didn't hear anything."

Bianca was looking at me. "Percy, are you okay?"

"Yeah," I said. "You guys go ahead. I'll be right in."

"What's wrong?" Zoe asked.

"Nothing," I said. "I… I just need a minute. To think."

They hesitated, but I guess I must've looked upset, because they finally went into the visitor center without me. As soon as they were gone, I jogged to the north edge of the dam and looked over.

"Moo."

She was about thirty feet below in the lake, but I could see her clearly: my friend from Long Island Sound, Bessie the cow serpent.

I looked around. There were groups of kids running along the dam. A lot of senior citizens. Some families. But nobody seemed to be paying Bessie any attention yet.

"What are you doing here?" I asked her.

"Moo!"

Her voice was urgent, like she was trying to warn me of something.

"How did you get here?" I asked. We were thousands of miles from Long Island, hundreds of miles inland. There was no way she could've swam all the way here. And yet, here she was.

Bessie swam in a circle and butted her head against the side of the dam. "Moo!"

She wanted me to come with her. She was telling me to hurry.

"I can't," I told her. "My friends are inside."

She looked at me with her sad brown eyes. Then she gave one more urgent "Mooo!," did a flip, and disappeared into the water.

I hesitated. Something was wrong. She was trying to tell me that. I considered jumping over the side and following her, but then I tensed. The hairs on my arms bristled. I looked down the dam road to the east and I saw two men walking slowly toward me. They wore gray camouflage outfits that flickered over skeletal bodies.

They passed through a group of kids and pushed them aside. A kid yelled, "Hey!" One of the warriors turned, his face changing momentarily into a skull.

"Ah!" the kid yelled, and his whole group backed away.

I ran for the visitor center.

I was almost to the stairs when I heard tires squeal. On the west side of the dam, a black van swerved to a stop in the middle of the road, nearly plowing into some old people.

The van doors opened and more skeleton warriors piled out. I was surrounded. I bolted down the stairs and through the museum entrance. The security guard at the metal detector yelled, "Hey, kid."

But I didn't, I couldn't afford to, I needed to move.

I ran through the exhibits and ducked behind a tour group. I looked for my friends, but I couldn't see them anywhere.

Where the hell was that snack bar?

"Stop!" The metal-detector guy yelled.

There was no place to go but into an elevator with the tour group. I ducked inside just as the door closed.

"We'll be going down seven hundred feet," our tour guide said cheerfully. She was a park ranger, with long black hair pulled back in a ponytail and tinted glasses. I guess she hadn't noticed that I was being chased. "Don't worry, ladies and gentlemen, the elevator hardly ever breaks."

"Does this go to the snack bar?" I asked her.

A few people behind me chuckled. The tour guide looked at me. Something about her gaze made my skin tingle.

"To the turbines, young man," the lady said. "Weren't you listening to my fascinating presentation upstairs?"

"Oh, uh, sure. Is there another way out of the dam?"

"It's a dead end," a tourist behind me said. "For heaven's sake. The only way out is the other elevator."

'Damnit.'

The doors opened.

"Go right ahead, folks," the tour guide told us. "Another ranger is waiting for you at the end of the corridor."

I didn't have much choice but to go out with the group.

"And young man," the tour guide called. I looked back. She'd taken off her glasses. Her eyes were startlingly gray, like storm clouds. "There is always a way out for those clever enough to find it."

'What the fu-'

The doors closed with the tour guide still inside, leaving me alone.

Before I could think too much about the woman in the elevator, a ding came from around the corner. The second elevator was opening, and I heard an unmistakable sound—the clattering of skeleton teeth.

I ran after the tour group, through a tunnel carved out of solid rock. It seemed to run

forever. The walls were moist, and the air hummed with electricity and the roar of water. I came out on a U-shaped balcony that overlooked this huge warehouse area. Fifty feet below, enormous turbines were running. It was a big room, but I didn't see any other exit, unless I wanted to jump into the turbines and get churned up to make electricity.

I didn't.

Another tour guide was talking over the microphone, telling the tourists about water supplies in Nevada. I prayed that Thalia, Zoe, and Bianca were okay. They might already be captured, or eating at the snack bar, completely unaware that we were being surrounded. And stupid me: I had trapped myself in a hole hundreds of feet below the surface.

I worked my way around the crowd, trying not to be too obvious about it. There was a hallway at the other side of the balcony—maybe some place I could hide. My hand lingered over the pocket where Riptide was, I pulled it away.

'There's more than enough water here for me to fight with.'

By the time I got to the opposite side of the balcony, my nerves were shot. I backed into the little hallway and watched the tunnel I'd come from.

Then right behind me I heard a sharp Chhh! like the voice of a skeleton.

Without thinking, I pulled on the water nearby, chains forming around my back on pure instinct and spun, the chains shooting forward.

The girl I'd just tried to impale yelped and dropped her Kleenex.

"Oh my god.'" she shouted. "Do you always kill people when they blow their nose?"

The first thing that went through my head was that the chains hadn't hurt her. They had all passed around her, I guess relying on instinct had its perks. "You're mortal!"

She looked at me in disbelief. "What's that supposed to mean? Of course I'm mortal! How did you do that?"

"I didn't—Wait, you can see these?" I gestured to the chains of water that moved like snakes around my back.

The girl rolled her eyes, which were green like mine. She had frizzy reddish-brown hair. Her nose was also red, like she had a cold. She wore a big maroon Harvard sweatshirt and jeans that were covered with marker stains and little holes, like she spent her free time poking them with a fork.

"Well, it's either chains or you have some very large snakes over your shoulders, which seems impossible," she said. "And why didn't they hurt me? I mean, not that I'm complaining. Who are you? And whoa, what is that you're wearing? Is that made of lion fur?"

She asked so many questions so fast, it was like she was throwing rocks at me. I couldn't think of what to say. I looked at my sleeves to see if the Nemean Lion pelt had somehow changed back to fur, but it still looked like a brown winter coat to me.

I knew the skeleton warriors were still chasing me. I had no time to waste. But I just stared at the redheaded girl. Then I remembered what Thalia had done at Westover Hall to fool the teachers. Maybe I could manipulate the Mist.

I concentrated hard and snapped my fingers. "You don't see these," I told the girl. "They don't exist."

She blinked. "Um… no. They do, weirdo."

"Who the hell are you?" I demanded.

She huffed indignantly. "Rachel Elizabeth Dare. Now, are you going to answer my questions or should I scream for security?"

"No!" I said. "I mean, I'm kind of in a hurry. I'm in trouble."

"In a hurry or in trouble?"

"Um, sort of both."

She looked over my shoulder and her eyes widened. "Bathroom!"

"What?"

"Bathroom! Behind me! Now!"

I don't know why, but I listened to her. I slipped inside the boys' bathroom and left Rachel Elizabeth Dare standing outside. Later, that seemed cowardly to me. I'm also pretty sure it saved my life.

I heard the clattering, hissing sounds of skeletons as they came closer.

The chains had wrapped around my forearm and I was itching to let them fly. What was I thinking? I'd left a mortal girl out there to die.

I was preparing to burst out and fight when Rachel Elizabeth Dare started talking in that rapid-fire machine gun way of hers.

"Oh my god! Did you see that kid? It's about time you got here. He tried to kill me! He had chains, for god's sake. You security guys let a lunatic inside a national landmark? I mean, jeez! He ran that way toward those turbine thingies. I think he went over the side or something. Maybe he fell."

The skeletons clattered excitedly. I heard them moving off.

Rachel opened the door. "All clear. But you'd better hurry."

She looked shaken. Her face was gray and sweaty.

I peeked around the corner. Three skeleton warriors were running toward the other end of the balcony. The way to the elevator was clear for a few seconds.

"I owe you one, Rachel Elizabeth Dare."

"What are those things?" she asked. "They looked like—"

"Skeletons?"

She nodded uneasily.

"Oh Armani is so much better at this than me," I mumbled, "Do yourself a favor, forget it. Forget you ever saw me."

"Forget you tried to kill me?"

"Yeah. Preferably."

"But who are you?"

"Percy—" I started to say. Then the skeletons turned around. "Gotta go!"

"What kind of name is Percy Gotta-go?"

I bolted for the exit.

The cafe was packed with kids enjoying the best part of the tour—the dam lunch. Thalia, Zoe, and Bianca were just sitting down with their food. "We need to leave," I gasped. "Now!"

"But we just got our burritos!" Thalia said. Zoe stood up, muttering an Ancient Greek curse. "He's right! Look."

The cafe windows wrapped all the way around the observation floor, which gave us a beautiful panoramic view of the skeletal army that had come to kill us. I counted two on the east side of the dam road, blocking the way to Arizona. Three more on the west side, guarding Nevada. All of them were armed with batons and pistols.

But our immediate problem was a lot closer. The three skeletal warriors who'd been chasing me in the turbine room now appeared on the stairs. They saw me from across the cafeteria and clattered their teeth.

"Elevator!" Bianca said. We bolted that direction, but the doors opened with a pleasant ding, and three more warriors stepped out. Every warrior was accounted for, minus the one Bianca had blasted to flames in New Mexico. We were completely surrounded.

Then I had a brilliant, totally Percy-like idea.

"Food fight!" I yelled, and flung Thalia's food at the nearest skeleton.

Now, if you have never been hit by flying food, count yourself lucky. In terms of deadly projectiles, it's right up there with grenades and cannonballs. The lunch hit the skeleton and knocked his skull clean off his shoulders. I'm not sure what the other kids in the cafe saw, but they went crazy and started throwing their burritos and baskets of chips and sodas at each other, shrieking and screaming.

The skeletons tried to aim their guns, but it was hopeless. Bodies and food and drinks were flying everywhere.

In the chaos, Thalia and I tackled the other two skeletons on the stairs and sent them flying into the condiment table. Then we all raced downstairs, Guacamole Grandes whizzing past our heads.

"What now?" Bianca asked as we burst outside.

I didn't have an answer. The warriors on the road were closing in from either direction. We ran across the street to the pavilion with the winged bronze statues, but that just put our backs to the mountain.

The skeletons moved forward, forming a crescent around us. Their brethren from the cafe were running up to join them. One was still putting its skull back on its shoulders. Another was covered in ketchup and mustard. Two more had burritos lodged in their rib cages. They didn't look happy about it. They drew batons and advanced.

"Four against eleven," Zoe muttered. "And they cannot die."

"It's been nice you guys," Bianca said, her voice trembling slightly.

Something shiny caught the corner of my eye. I glanced behind me at the statue's feet.

"Whoa," I said. "Their toes really are bright."

"Percy!" Thalia said. "This isn't the time."

But I couldn't help staring at the two giant bronze guys with tall bladed wings like letter openers. They were weathered brown except for their toes, which shone like new pennies from all the times people had rubbed them for good luck.

Good luck. The blessing of Zeus.

I thought about the tour guide in the elevator. Her gray eyes and her smile. What had she said? There is always a way for those clever enough to find it.

"Thalia," I said. "Pray to your dad."

She glared at me. "He never answers."

"Just this once," I pleaded. "Ask for help. I think… I think the statues can give us some luck. At least I hope they can"

Six skeletons raised their guns. The other five came forward with batons. Fifty feet away. Forty feet.

"Do it!" I yelled.

"No!" Thalia said. "He won't answer me."

"This time is different!"

"Who says?"

I hesitated. "Athena, I think. Gods, I hope I'm not crazy."

Thalia scowled like she was sure I'd gone crazy.

"Try it," Bianca pleaded.

Thalia closed her eyes. Her lips moved in a silent prayer. I put in my own prayer to Athena, hoping I was right that it had been her in that elevator.

And nothing happened.

The skeletons closed in. I raised my hands, the chains coiled around my arms began to loosen. Thalia held up her shield.

Zoe and Bianca raised their bows and aimed an arrow at a skeleton's head.

A shadow fell over me. I thought maybe it was the shadow of death. Then I realized it was the shadow of an enormous wing. The skeletons looked up too late. A flash of bronze, and all five of the baton-wielders were swept aside.

The other skeletons opened fire. I raised my lion coat for protection, but I didn't need it. The bronze angels stepped in front of us and folded their wings like shields. Bullets pinged off of them like rain off a corrugated roof. Both angels slashed outward, and the skeletons went flying across the road.

"Man, it feels good to stand up!" the first angel said. His voice sounded tiny and rusty, like he hadn't had a drink since he'd been built.

"Will ya look at my toes?" the other said. "Holy Zeus, what were those tourists thinking?"

As stunned as I was by the angels, I was more concerned with the skeletons. A few of them were getting up again, reassembling, bony hands groping for their weapons. The chains of water lashed out, pushing a few of them across the open air.

"Trouble!" I said.

"Get us out of here!" Thalia yelled.

Both angels looked down at her. "Zeus's kid?" Yes!

"Could I get a please, Miss Zeus's Kid?" an angel asked.

"Please!"

The angels looked at each other and shrugged.

"Could use a stretch," one decided.

And the next thing I knew, one of them grabbed Thalia and me, the other grabbed Zoe and Bianca, and we flew straight up, over the dam and the river, the skeleton warriors shrinking to tiny specks below us and the sound of gunfire echoing off the sides of the mountains.

…

…

…

…

A set of grey eyes snapped open.

The owner of the eyes slowly sat up, blinking slowly as they took in their surroundings. When they had fully sat up, they looked at the world around them, clear blue skies as far as the eye could see, the 'ground' beneath them seemed to be some kind of opaque grey liquid, slowly sloshing around as they moved. They looked up again, this time taking note of the off-white buildings that randomly jutted from the sky and each other, inverted and twisted, some looked like they started and ended with no real logic.

They stood, stumbling as they got up, looking down at their body made them realize that they were slightly see-through.

"I gotta admit Queen, that was pretty stupid, even for you."

They whipped around to face the voice, grasping at their waist for… for what? There was nothing there at all, just empty space.

"Interesting, so your mind submits and your body succumbs, but your soul still persists? Maybe I can make this work…"

The figure before them was strikingly familiar, but they couldn't put their finger on why.

'Who are you?'

Their face perked up, and they made their way towards them, "So, you don't even have a voice? Hmm…" They circled around them as if to inspect them thoroughly.

The man sighed and shook his head, "Well, I'm Omen, you should know that but… you did something stupid, and your body was scattered to the winds. But even now, They won't let you die. So it's my job to put you back together, but this…" he ran a hand through his long black hair, "is going to be much more difficult than previously."

'What do you mean? I don't understand any of this.' The shade-like person asked the man, and he just shook his head in response.

"No point in explaining now," he said, "The problem is that to put you back together after this, I need to do… all of it."

He stopped, looking at the shade and then back up to the sky, "Which means you'll remember things," he sighed, "this is not how I wanted to do this."

Suddenly a large wooden door appeared off to the right of the man, the shade flinched at the sudden and abrupt appearance of it.

"You don't have a choice I'm afraid, I can only hope to shield you from the worst until you are truly ready for all of this." he gestured towards the door and gave the shade a light tap on the back, but even with the light tap it still made them stumble.

"It's all you, I'll be seeing you on the other side, we'll have much to discuss, Queen."

And with those final words, the man evaporated into ash and scattered into the air, the shade watched until every last speck of the grey dust was gone from view. Peering at the door, they sighed, or they would have if they could even do that. With a bit of reluctance, they made their way over to the large wooden door, their hand resting on the large iron ring used to pull the door. They pulled the door open to slowly show an eerie red light emanating from behind it.

They gulped and pulled the door open the rest of the way, carefully, they stepped over the threshold, feeling the pull from inside the door. As soon as they stepped through the door shut behind them, and the world grew black.

…

…

…

Not yet, Ren.

Author's Notes:

I'm really happy with this chapter actually, the interactions between Zoe and Percy feel really good to me and feel like a nice setup for later. I hope everyone feels like they're actually sad and not just immediately moving on. But to be fair when Bianca died in canon, they were laughing at the dam and stuff too so I'm not too worried about it.

Some of this chapter isn't very different from canon, I just didn't see many ways to change it besides what's already there.

For Percy, him not using Riptide has been something I've been planning since the beginning, what with changes to Zoe, and her obvious survival since they're shipped in this story, I wanted him to lean more into his powers, and I really like the idea of the water chains. Feel free to comment on that.

I purposefully shifted view away from Thalia to leave her thoughts for later, and Bianca. Bianca will have some nice developments later.

And the teasing at the end, well I'm sure everyone will figure it all out sooner or later.

Hope you all enjoyed!

-Dredgen.