Percy POV:

I sat on the shoulder of one of the angels, Hank, I believe his name was, juggling three fireballs in my hands. They glowed red, blue, and green, and spun in colorful ring as I tossed them back and forth. Zoe stared at the orbs, her obsidian eyes reflecting the colored light as we flew through the skies.

The huntress had actually wrapped herself around me, as if she were afraid I would disappear again. Even when the others looked at her weirdly, especially Bianca, Zoe ignored them, going as far as to lean into my shoulder. I was halfway between asking her why she was doing this when I received a rather ominous feeling coming from her gaze, and decided to not pry any further in that specific direction.

"Since when did you have fire powers?" Zoe asked. The girls on the other angel looked on jealously, mostly because my heating system was activated and Zoe and Bianca were the only two who had current access to it.

"I've always been able to control and summon fire," I said. "It's just that the concept of traveling to a different reality made me forget I could do so. Oh, and I can do this too." I summoned a plate of cheese and broccoli pasta and began digging in, absolutely starving.

"You can create meals too?" Zoe's mouth watered, despite her attempted self control. "Were you blessed by Lady Hestia or something?"

I nodded. "Back in my world, Hestia became my immortal mom I guess. My patron, if you want to use more appropriate vocabulary. She gave me fire powers and the ability to create home-cooked meals."

Zoe's hand jerked towards my hand and snatched my fork, before promptly eating out of the plate on my lap.

"You could've just asked," I sighed.

"Hey bro, you gonna share or what?!" Atalanta yelled from the back of the other angel. "Are you gonna just feed your Hunter girlfriend and leave your friends to starve?"

I didn't even react to Atti's antics. "Unless you say please, you ain't getting no food."

"Not happening," Atalanta huffed. Her stomach rumbled. "Okay, fine. Please bro."

I chuckled and summoned three plates of the same dish across their laps, with which they immediately dug into.

By the time I looked back down at my plate, Zoe had finished, and was licking up the fork clean of sauce. When she caught me staring at her dumbfounded, the huntress blushed and placed the fork back on the plate, before returning to her position on my shoulder.

I vanished the plate with a snap of my fingers and put a hand on my forehead. "Zoe, is there any reason why you are acting weirder than usual?"

"Weird? What's weird?" Zoe asked innocently, playing with the string of her bow.

"You're leaning on me like a normal girl would do," I said, which earned me an immediate smack. "And you're eating from my lap. Like, aren't you too frigid to act like that or something?"

Another smack. "Ow, and stop hitting me!"

"I am a girl." Zoe replied. "Also, you're giving off a ton of heat. In case you haven't noticed, we're flying over the tops of snowy mountains." She stretched out a foot to kick snow off one of the peaks, proving her point.

"Also, I'm trying to... see things differently," Zoe blushed. "You said that guys didn't just date girls because they were attractive right?"

I nodded dumbly, not even able to give her a reason about why what she was doing was making me uncomfortable. "Ugh, you would die in modern society," I said instead. "Maybe that's why you're a Hunter. Cause you wouldn't be able to do a thing in a city without your quiver and bow."

"Why... you!"

"Hahahahaha!"

We fell into a strange peaceful silence, uninterrupted except by Bianca's occasional anime sleeping bubble pops. Zoe peered at the other trio of girls on the other angel. Once she confirmed that all of them seemed asleep, she moved her position to my lap.

"Uh... Zoe?" I asked nervously. "What are you doing?"

"If I sit like this," Zoe said, her cheeks pink. "I can speak to you without you looking away, and I can still stay warm."

"Smart," I grinned. "But are you sure I'm gonna be the one looking away?"

"Hmmmm..." Zoe seemed to ponder. "We'll see, Perseus."

"What is it that you want to talk about?" I asked. "Is it about what happened before I was lost?"

The huntress nodded, playing with a lock of her hair. "Why did you connect my... blood to your knife?" She held Shade out, which sat still as I reached out to take ahold of the familiar grip. I lifted the blade up to my face, turning it just enough for it to catch the sun's faint rays through the snowy clouds. "The ultimate weapon to protect you in the final fight against your father." I said. "Besides my oath on the River Styx, this blade will make sure that you live."

"But why me specifically?" Zoe asked. "You could've given the blade to Thalia, Annabeth, or even Atalanta. Why me?"

I turned away, unable to answer that question. What was I suppose to say, that I like her?

"And why," Zoe's voice dropped an octave lower. "Why did you kiss me? I'm a Hunter, Perseus. A lieutenant of a group of male-hating girls."

I shuddered at her closeness, before pulling out a shit-eating grin to hide my nervousness. "That kiss? I was just returning one after that little trick you pulled during Capture the Flag. You think I would forget something like that?"

Zoe pulled back, the memory clearly fresh in her mind. "That was just an accident."

"An accident?" I laughed, glad we were back to straight up humor. "The lieutenant of the Hunters willingly pecks a nasty male on the cheek? Is this an alternate reality or what?"

Zoe giggled and flicked my forehead hard, making me wince. "Hahaha, alright then," I laughed. "I see how it is." I flicked her back, making Zoe stop short, as if she wasn't expecting me to have the audacity to hit her back.

"Whatever," the huntress turned away.

I snickered. "Another point for the boy's team."

Zoe couldn't even come up with a good enough comeback and instead just leaned forward, essentially hugging me.

I couldn't bear to feel embarrassed again, so decided to bring up a really bad idea. "So ummm... what would your mistress say about this?"

That seemed to bring Zoe to her senses. She pushed herself off of me and rolled to the side, before inching back towards me for warmth. "Don't say a word."

I facepalmed. "Right. Don't tell the virgin goddess that her virgin lieutenant was cuddling up to a guy for half an hour. Also don't tell her that they exchanged kisses. Okay, yep. I've got that written down." I deadpanned, making Zoe blush.

"Seriously, Perseus!" Zoe groaned.

"You know, normally I hate people calling me Perseus," I realized. "But for some reason, I let you call me that. Maybe it's cause you're old-fashioned and forcing you to call me Percy would be weird? Gah, what am I saying?"

"Promise you won't tell," Zoe got in my face again, her hands playing her hunting knives like she was going to unsheathe one at any moment and slice my face into ribbons.

"Chillax, girl." I placated her. "I won't tell Artemis your little fantasy alright?"

"Stop it Stop it Stop it!"

"Alright, okay! Stop hitting me!"

"Are you two done?" Thalia's voice cut through the air.

We looked up from our cat fight and turned to see the daughter of Zeus with her arms crossed, a smug smirk across her face. She seemed so smug that she had completely forgotten we were flying several hundreds of feet in the sky.

"Just ask each other out already!" Thalia sighed, her hand on her face, which displayed slight annoyance. "As long as you don't take her virginity, Percy, you should be fine!"

My face hit the angel's back the moment Thalia finished talking. Zoe's face went from pink to red in a record of half a millisecond as the two of us fully processed what Thalia had said.

"Fuck you, Thals," I groaned. "Why did you have to say something that crass?"

"You do it all the time," Thalia continued, "What's wrong with me saying something weird and awkward?"

I didn't respond and instead summoned a glowing ball of Greek fire, my eyes glowing with power. "In case you haven't noticed Thals, we're flying in the air. Please shut up before I accidentally throw this your direction."

"Party pooper," Thalia grumbled as she paled, flipping me off. "I'll get you one day."

"Sure, sure." I scratched my neck, putting out the flame. "You can try."

Zoe ended up spending the next couple minutes practicing with her bow, shooting hundred mile per hour bullseyes whenever we passed a Target department store. I chuckled everytime she fired. It was probably a good thing that the Mist helped hid the immortal world from their eyes, otherwise every time they do roof maintenance, those poor workers would just find a silver arrow dead center in the store logo.

I couldn't help but draw my own bow, loading up a water construct arrow instead of the usual Tiber metal ones. With a flick of the wrist I shot the arrow with my head turned towards Zoe, the arrow splitting hers cleanly in half. The huntress noticed of course, and snarled, her eyes glinting with the acceptance of my subtle challenge. She shut her eyes and shot sideways, letting the wind steer her shot dead center on the head of the Starbucks logo. The moment the arrow hit, Zoe put down her bow and shot a victorious grin my way. I snickered and shook my head, morphing my bow into a crossbow and waiting until we passed the Starbucks, then fired into the wind behind us. Moments later, I checked my shot with my goggles and proved that I once again split Zoe's arrow in two.

We ended up doing this back and forth, with Bianca joining in the friendly competition when she woke. By the time we reached the border of California, every Target we had passed were shot full of silver and blue arrows.

I took a short nap until we reached San Francisco, with which most of us were already awake to see. The city was as beautiful as I remembered, a smaller and cleaner Manhattan, if Manhattan had been surrounded by green hills and fog. There was huge bay and ships, islands and sailboats, and the Golden Gate Bridge sticking up out of the fog. I smiled, feeling the Roman tattoo on my shoulder warm as if it were reminding me how close to my second home I was. It was really sad how it took so long for the Romans and Greeks to come together. We achieved so much more as one than apart, yet somehow the gods managed to keep us apart as much as possible. Okay, I know Octavian was still alive, but still, after the 2nd Giant War, the two camps became so interconnected that you would've never believed we were ever kept from each other. We even had annual tournaments, combining the games played in both camps.

I stood so lost in memories that I didn't even realize my friends were waiting for me to get off of Hank's shoulder.

"PERSEUS?!" Zoe shot at me, effectively waking me from my thoughtful stupor.

I shook my head. "Sorry, lost in thought." I jumped off and thanked the angels, who flew off to party with their California statue friends if I remembered correctly.

"So, what now?" Thalia turned.

"Didn't you say we have to find this old man, Nereus was it?" Annabeth asked.

"We don't need Nereus," I said. "Everything he has the answer to, I have as well."

"...Oh yah..." Atalanta facepalmed. "Forgot you came from the future bro."

"Tomorrow's the winter solstice," Zoe mentioned. "We don't have much time to dilly dally around. If you have answers, now would be a good time to tell us some."

I nodded and grabbed the Ophiotaurus capsule out of my travel pack. "Atti and I found this creature in the sea off the coast of Camp Half Blood before the quest began. Any of you recognize this?"

Zoe took one glance at the electronic screen and gasped, her hand going to her mouth. "The–The Ophiotaurus? Of course! I remember that story now!"

"A serpent bull," Annabeth translated. "This is the monster Artemis is hunting? It looks harmless though."

"Unfortunately, the titans are after it," I said.

"You were right back then," Zoe remembered. "You suggested that the monster might not be big and massive, but harmful in the form of death. The Ophiotaurus is one such case. Killing innocence gives one terrible power. According to what the Fates ordained eons again, whoever sacrificed the entrails of the Ophiotaurus to fire would have the power to destroy the gods."

Atalanta balked. "Really? That thing?"

"Told you it was dangerous," I said. "That's why I kept it in the Tiber cell. We cannot let Luke or the Titans get their hands on this. With that much power, they don't even need to resurrect Kronos to take down Olympus."

"The Ophiotaurus is inside?" Zoe asked, pointing to the cell.

I nodded. "With a little help from various minor deities, the cells slow time by 100 times. Anyone inside won't need food for about 6 human years, as their vitals and everything are essentially frozen from when they were trapped."

"Damn," Atalanta said. "That's some hard core inventions."

"So how would one gain the power to destroy Olympus?" Bianca asked. "What happened the first time?"

"No one knows," Zoe said. "The first time, during the Titan war, the Ophiotaurus was in fact slain by a giant ally of the Titans, but Lord Zeus sent an eagle to snatch the entrails away before they could be tossed into the sacrificial flames. Now, after three thousand years, the Ophiotaurus is reborn."

"Well, we have the monster," Thalia said, rubbing her bracelet nervously. "What do we do, kill it?"

I shook my head. "Killing it would be helping the creature go one step towards helping the Titans if they ever got their hands on it. In my reality, we managed to convince Poseiden and Hephaestus to build a tank on Olympus for the Ophiotaurus. But with this containment chamber, I think we're safe from that possibility of losing its entrails for now. Unless I'm killed, the Ophiotaurus won't be released."

"So again, what do we do now?" Annabeth asked.

I stared up towards the tip of Mount Tamalpais, the mountain that served as the new Mount Orthys, like how the Empire State building represented Mount Olympus. "We head for the Titan's fortress. With this much extra time, we should put in as much effort to save the goddesses. Today is the final day. Tomorrow is the solstice."

Zoe's face became blank, her skin the color of the fog. "Are you suggesting..."

"The Garden of the Hesperides." I confirmed with a grimace. "Unfortunately, that means a couple of family visits."

"Family... visits?" Annabeth paled.

I sighed. "I know personally how much you and Zoe hate... well, hate is a strong word, let's use despise. How much you despise your families, but one, we need to get to that mountain fast, which means we need to borrow a car. And two, the Garden of Hesperides is sort of in our way up the mountain to the fortress."

"The Hesperides are Zoe's sisters?" Bianca asked. "Aren't they a group of immortal sea nymphs?"

I nodded. "Well, because of Zoe's past, they disowned her and... you'll see when we get there." I ended up holding Zoe's hand in comfort, since the huntress had froze up the moment she got ahold of the conversation's direction.

"A car huh?" Annabeth muttered. "I suppose, I could put aside my feelings for the better of the team."

Thalia smiled weakly. "You sure, Annie? We could just search for a rental."

Annabeth shook her head. "That'll take too long. We don't even have phones because we're half-bloods. Plus, we're running on limited time."

"How are you gonna take care of it then?" Atalanta asked.

"Percy's right," Annabeth said, staring into the horizon. "Zoe's not the only one who has a family here."

§§§§§

After hearing Annabeth gripe about her dad for two years, Atalanta expected him to have devil horns and fangs. She was not expecting him to be wearing an old-fashioned aviator's cap and goggles. He looked so weird, with his eyes bugging out through the glasses, that we all took a step back on the front porch.

I honestly don't know how he didn't realize what a weird group of kids we were to show up on his porch, because I feel like two girls dressed in silver hunting clothes, a punk girl, a 6 ft tall armored warrior and Annabeth herself would probably raise some red flags. No offense to Atalanta, who was the only one who looked normal.

"Hello," he said in a friendly voice. "Are you delivering my airplanes? Kinda big group to be doing that."

I sighed. Clearly Annabeth wasn't going to speak up, from shock or hesitation I don't know. "Mr. Chase, it's about Athena." I said bluntly.

The man's face instantly warped from friendly to worried in two seconds flat as he realized his daughter was standing a few inches from him. "Annabeth!"

"Hey Dad," the blonde put up a weak smile.

Frederick Chase stood and removed his aviator gear, revealing the same sandy colored hair Annabeth had and a set of intense brown eyes. He didn't seem to have shave in a couple of days, and his shirt was buttoned wrong, so one side of his collar stuck up higher than the other side.

"You'd better come in," he said.

If I remembered correctly, the Chase family had just recently moved. The house didn't look newly moved into though. Legos covered many areas of the house, and two cats slept on the sofa in the living room. The coffee table was stacked with magazines, and a little kid's winter coat was spread on the floor. The whole house smelled like fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies, making my mouth water. There was jazz music coming from inside the kitchen. It seemed like a messy, happy kind of home – the kind of place that had been lived in forever.

It was sad really, how being a demigod divided the individual between the immortal world and the mortal world. Even in the future, Annabeth never properly reconciled with her dad and stepmom's family. Taking the chance to become a goddess was like breaking the final chains for her, freeing Annabeth from ever needing to think of her mortal family ever again. I was one of the lucky ones, able to have a mortal family who loved me regardless of who I was, who supported me even when monsters attacked. My mom sacrificed her time and soul for me, to get me to camp, to buy time for me to chase Kronos during the Titan War, even marrying a brute to hide my scent for a decade. Paul went out of his way to get me the proper education I needed for society, not minding for a second that my ADHD got me into trouble multiple times in the past. Our apartment was nothing as fancy as the Chase household, but it was still home to me just as much as camp was.

For Annabeth though, and most other demigods, their mortal homes were nothing but hellholes. The only home they knew of was camp, because they had bad relationships with their parents, or their mortals parents had died in accidents usually caused by the godly parents' mistakes. Annabeth blamed her family for abandoning her to monsters. Thalia's mother drank and died while driving drunk (by the way, don't drink and drive!) and forcibly separated Thalia from Jason. Leo's mother was burned in a fire caused by Gaea's manipulation, Hazel's mother was controlled by the same Earth goddess into recreating a monster, and Frank's only family was his grandmother, but he was treated as an outcast because of assumptions made on his ancestors. Nico and Bianca had their mother vaporized by Zeus himself, and Nico was forced to grow under the cruel manipulations of the ghost of King Minos, learning the hard way on what is was like being a son of Hades. Of the seven, Piper probably had the second best relationship, though even that relationship was marred by forced false memories, and heavy and often use of charmspeak.

It wasn't just the seven though. Plenty of other demigods were tossed from their own families essentially, leading to so many following Luke's ideals because they felt betrayed by both the mortal and immortal world. If not for the friendships Annabeth forged with Camp Half Blood, she may have joined Luke in the fight against the gods. She may have even joined the Hunters. And the thought struck me that she might in this reality, because Atalanta was a girl, not a guy. Now, I personally don't think Annabeth was bi, but even then... you know what, forget it. I'm not interested in her anymore.

I was pulled out of my thoughts by Zoe shaking my shoulder roughly, making me blink and realize that we had somehow already made our way to Mr. Chase's office.

"Whoa!" Atalanta said. "This looks awesome!"

The room was wall-to-wall books, the centerpiece of attention being the amount of war toys. There was huge table with miniature tanks and soldiers fighting along a blue painted river, with hills and fake trees and stuff. Old-fashioned biplanes hung on strings from the ceiling, tilted at crazy angles like they were in the middle of a dogfight.

Dr. Chase smiled. "Yes. The Third Battle of Ypres. I'm writing a paper, you see, on the use of Sopwith Camels to strafe enemy lines. I believe they played a much greater role than they've been given credit for."

He plucked a biplane from its string and swept it across the battlefield, making airplane engine noises as he knocked down little German soldiers.

Zoe stepped forward to study the battlefield. "The German lines were farther from the river."

"How do you know that?" Dr. Chase stared at her.

"I was there," Zoe's snarky matter-of-fact tone said, "Artemis wanted to show us how..." She paused, glancing backwards at me for moment, where I was crossing my arms with an eyebrow raised. The huntress blinked and turned back to the Sopwith Camel fanatic. "She wanted to show us how men fought."

She moved back towards me until her back was up against my chest. "I-I almost went overboard again," she whispered back.

I chuckled. "Hey you're getting better. Last time, you went on a rant how pointless the war was."

"It was pointless," Zoe whined. "But I'm trying to be less brash, as you told me."

Dr. Chase had his mouth gaped. "You saw the Sopwith Camels then? How many were there? What formation did they fly?"

"Sir," Thalia said. "Athena is in danger."

It dawned to me at that moment that had Thalia not interjected at that time, Zoe would've stood there rather confused. I snickered at the thought of the answer she would give. "They flew like a flock of geese? What other formations are there?"

Zoe shot me a cute glare as if she knew I was laughing at her.

"Nothing," I assured her. "Just imagining a funny scenario."

By the time we finished out moment, Thalia and Atalanta had finished debriefing Dr. Chase about everything that had recently gone down. Annabeth was thumbing the spines of the books on the wall, as if she were attempting to find a special book to pick out and read. Bianca stood next to Zoe awkwardly, pretending to be oblivious to the flirty behavior that the lieutenant and I exchanged.

I glanced out the window. The sun was setting already, despite the lead in time that we had. We needed to get moving soon less we miss the entrance time.

When we finished, Dr. Chase collapsed in his leather armchair. "You need transportation? I'll drive you. Hmm, it'll be faster to fly in my Camel, but it only seats two."

"Sir," I stepped forward, my armor deactivated already so that I looked like a normal human. Turns out that I was about the same height as Dr. Chase. "If you could please provide us a vehicle, then we can be on our way. Time is short. Also, I can handle the driving. I'm old enough."

Dr. Chase frowned uncomfortably. "You must understand that it's hard for me to just hand my car over to..."

"Snacks." Ms. Chase announced. She pushed through the door with a tray full of peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, Cokes and cookies fresh from the oven. None of us needed to ask what to do before we began inhaling the snacks one after another. I pocketed a Coke for later, just in case.

When I finished swallowing my fifth cookie, I turned back to Mr. Chase. "Sir, with all due respect, you're the best chance we have at getting where we need to be. But, you can't go, cause it's too dangerous for you."

"What's going on?" Ms. Chase asked.

"Annabeth's mother is in danger," Dr. Chase said nervously. "On Mount Tam. I would drive them, but . . . apparently it's no place for mortals."

I winced. He had a lot of guts to say that out loud.

Ms. Chase stared at us, then back at her husband. "Then they'd better get going right?"

"Right!" Dr. Chase jumped up and started patting his pockets. "My keys..."

His wife sighed. "Frederick, honestly. You'd lose your head if it weren't wrapped inside your aviator hat. The keys are hanging on the peg by the front door."

"Right!"

We hustled out the house and into the driveway, me clutching Dr. Chase's keys. "Yo Dr. Chase!" I yelled back.

"Yah?"

"If your car gets toasted, I'll get you a new one!" I said, grinning like crazy, before hopping into the driver's seat of the yellow VW convertible parked in the driveway.

We left Annabeth's dad standing there, mouth gaped like a fish. I looked at the time. We had two hours left to save Artemis and Athena. Two hours where mistakes could not be made, no matter what.

A/N:

The Final Countdown: Dun, dun dun da dun, da duh da da daaaa... musical notes... you know. (Oh, and it's not counting down till the end of this story, don't worry.)

For those of you who don't get the chapter title: A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing is an idiom meaning the outside looks harmless, while the inside is actually vile. I used this idiom for many reasons, the main being that San Francisco does in fact look amazing on the outside, but it also is a beacon location for monsters as Mount Tam is the base stronghold for the Titan's base of Mount Orthys. And the second being the Romans are close by as well, not necessarily written as vile, but still dangerous as any Greek and Roman contact is assumed to always result in bloodshed.

I wanted to get a little creative with chapter naming, so here's the explanation.

Stay safe and warm everyone!

Peace out, you legends.

- Zayden Shade