Got you, eh? You thought I'd be gone for 2 months.

When the boar finally stopped, I was relieved. I wouldn't have to ride on the back of a former friend any longer.

Unfortunately, the boar ran off into the west once the questers had disembarked.

No boar backup.

In front of the boar riders was an old small town, a few dusty houses and a taco store that seemed to have closed down around the time Zeus was born.

Beyond that were huge hills made up of junk and godly waste. The scene was so disgusting to me that I felt like throwing up on the spot. Humans were pretty bad at keeping the Earth clean.

"We can try the hills later. Right now, we can rest from our long journey." Zoë announced.

I felt like replying that the journey had largely been made up of boar/train rides so far but I was getting tired so I didn't complain.

Zoë and Bianca produced 6 silver sleeping bags from their backpacks, one for each of the boar passengers.

The boar riders all got into their respective bags. I didn't know if it was an illusion but Percy's bag seemed to be smaller than the girl's.

I got into the sleeping bag Zoē had brought out for me. Surprisingly, the warm fabric insulated the inside well.

I nearly gasped when I saw the stars out. They were arranged in the way a musical composition was. All in the right order. Some sharps could have been turned to flats and a minor chord could have been swapped with it's major equivalent but as a whole, this musical was well written . I spotted many of the stars as ones I'd seen before on previous stargazing experiences before.

But some stars were missing. An old blue dot had taken the place of a cheerful young yellow fire.

An interesting nebula could not be seen.

One constellation had been torn apart by the star's movements.

And several others were simply gone.

Despite this, Bianca gazed up at the stars.

"They're beautiful," she said.

"This is nothing, compared to the past. Unfortunately, humans have been polluting the sky for centuries," Zoë replied dryly.

"You talk like you're not human," Percy said.

"I am a hunter, boy. I care what happens to the remaining wild places. Can the same be said for thee?"

"You. Not thee. Nobody's said thee in like, 300 hundred years. Get with the times Zoë," Thalia replied.

Zoë's faces struggled to come up with the u sound so she looked like she was morphing into something else. She gave up after three tries.

"But you use you for the beginning of a sentence," Zoë said, trying to provide an explanation for her pronunciation.

"And the end. No thous, no thees, just you," Thalia said.

Zoë threw her hands in exasperation. "I hate this language!"

She proceeded to say something in Ancient Greek though it was unintelligible to her fellow humans.

"We should be preparing the rest of our journey to Las Vegas," Zoë then said, bringing forth the problem of how we were going to get there.

"No!"

I turned to Bianca who had let out an outburst.

"I mean, Nico and I had travelled there and... I can't remember," Bianca said.

Percy looked as if he'd just cracked open Pandora's pithos.

"Bianca, you stayed at a hotel right? Was it called the Lotus Hotel and Casino?" He asked.

Bianca looked shocked. "How could you possibly know that?"

"Oh, great," Percy said.

"What? What happens there?" Thalia asked, interested.

"It's this hotel in Las Vegas. It's made so that you never want to leave. Me, Annabeth, and Grover got stuck in there for an hour and 5 days had passed when we got out," Percy said.

"That would explain Bianca's age problem," I thought out loud. Bianca got that distant look in her eyes like she was wondering why it had to be her who had the age problem. I felt a bit sorry for her.

"But, how did you get out?" Percy asked, "We were in there for an hour and it took all our willpower to leave."

"I... I don't know."

Suddenly, a bright light lit up the place, emitted from the headlight of a car. The car in this case was a white limo. Certainly not the Sun car as I'd been hoping. It wasn't heating up the desert sand around my Nike shoes.

The questers got out of the way as the white limo rolled up right beside Percy.

The tip of a wicked sword touched Percy's neck. As the driver emerged, Percy was forced to slowly backpedal himself.

Zoë and Bianca had gotten their bows out.

"Not so fast now, are you punk?" The driver sneered.

"Ares," Percy retorted, "The god who was too scared to finish a fight with a demigod."

"Watch it kid. You're nothing compared to me."

"Come on then, fight me, right here and now."

Ares sneered. He picked Percy by the neck and threw him into the car.

"Your friend is going to be gone for a few minutes. Get some food at the restaurant. He'll be right back," He declared.

"We're not leaving Percy. And the Taco place is closed," Grover retorted though his shaky voice told me he was scared for his life.

"Are you doubting the boy's safety in my hands?" Ares roared, "Just head over there and come back later."

Nobody objected.

I glanced behind me as the questers made their way towards the taco place.

Ares sneered at me as I looked back. My eye suddenly felt a sudden heat, making me instinctively turn back to the taco place.

As the questers got closer, the taco place seemed to emit s feeling of happiness and joy.

Once the questers reached the taco place, it was soon clear that it had been the right choice to leave Percy behind. The smell of the tacos was too strong for any mere primordial deity to resist.

"What is this?" Zoë asked, holding up a taco.

"That's one of the greatest foods to ever exist," Grover replied, digging into one with a piece of the table. How he got the table, I didn't know but I knew it was better to not ask when it came to satyrs and food.

"All hail, the lieutenant of the Hunters of Artemis! The lieutenant who doesn't know what a taco is," Thalia said snarkily.

Zoë's eyes flashed in anger but they soon turned to surprise as she looked behind Thalia and towards the limo that was now racing away from the taco restaurant.

"They've kidnapped Percy!" Grover yelped, heading to the windows.

"Perhaps this is for the better," Zoë said, looking forward to continuing without Percy.

"Shut up Zoë! This is serious. We need to follow that limo and get Percy out," Thalia yelled.

Zoë's flared up in anger again.

"Rescuing a boy from 2 Olympian deities? Absolutely not," She said.

But then the world turned blue.