Well boys, we did it. Twenty chapters and three hundred thousand words. I'm honestly shook that I managed to even write this. I don't really have much to say right here, so let's just go right into the reviews

Echoxenvy: "Wow dude, great chapter. I like the conflict in Zane's head, especially his self hatred, because it truly shows he regrets a lot of his past actions and has become a better person. A lot of romantic drama huh? I felt this was more of a Zico chapter, since they spent more time together. Maybe the next one will be more focused on Taylor, I don't know. The drama was great though, and I thought it realistic to have him confess to them both afterwards, since he couldn't have kept it inside for like three more chapters, so it makes since and it didn't feel rushed at all. The fighting was good, and I really loved how Zane combined his lightning with Percy's water. And Percy will get more than just a hug then? Hmm can't wait for that lol. But seriously great chapter, and I can't wait for the next, super hyped for the Atlas rematch."

Response: Yeah, I've tried my hardest to show Zane getting better as a person, and having regrets for his past actions is hopefully something that shows it. Zane's not gonna be an absolute bastard the entire series, looking at you Demi-Titan. And yeah, last chapter was a Zico chapter, as the chapter before that felt more like a Zaylor chapter. I have to split them up if I'm going to create drama here lol. And something I really want to do with this arc in the final arc is have combo attacks, like how Zane used Percy's water to supercharge his lightning. Like some Avengers type shit. And Percy will get more than a hug, lol, that I can absolutely promise you. And this chapter is the prelude to the Atlas fight, so I'm basically gonna cover the entire rest of the book before then right here, so this might be a long chapter lol. Anyway, hope you enjoy it.

SaUvE ViPeR: "A good chapter. I enjoyed Zane's inner thoughts and how hard it is to choose between two people he likes, because it is realistic that it would be difficult. I liked the confessions, they were done well and I am left with confliction, but ultimately I choose Taylor. I think his reaction tells me he is the best choice for Zane. Not saying Nico's reaction was bad, or that he could help it, but he was a bit unsure, and didn't outright reciprocate right away, while Taylor did, and initiated the kiss. For me, that cements him as Zane's true love interest. But I'm not sure where you'll go with it, just my opinion, and if he does choose Nico, that's fine too. Also, the fight was great, as usual with this story, I loved the part where Percy and Zane team up, and Percy wanting to kill Luke and Atlas. I hope when he sees Annabeth again he goes back to the old Percy, and gets Annabeth's love. Anyway, I can't wait for the next chapter!

P.S. A quick question concerning Echoxenvy, sorry I have to ask you probably don't like constantly being asked about him or Son of Hercules, but I can't help but find similarities in the stories and you even said you are friends and there will be a crossover so I don't think you will mind the question. Anyway, give me a sneak peek in the crossover itself. How will your Universe's characters react to Matt? Would they like him? And how different would things be if Matt was the MC of your story? I know he is different from Zane, and would probably make different decisions. So how do you think the story so far would go if Matt were the MC? I'll ask the same question to Echoxenvy about Zane when he uploads his next chapter, because I am curious. Sorry if this review was long.

A follow up question I forgot to ask, but since both stories have romantic subplots, who would be Matt's love interest? Since he is not gay in Son of Hercules, would he even have one? Thalia maybe?"

Response: I'm glad I could accurately portray the difficulty in choosing between two people last chapter, and I hopefully hope I can do it in this one. And I understand why you choose Taylor, but remember, Nico is still like thirteen, so he's not completely familiar with the whole relationship thing, and throw in the fact that he grew up in homophobic 1930s Italy and America, he's unsure of what to feel. But yeah, he absolutely does reciprocate. You'd have to be an idiot to not realize that lmao. And I do have a final plan for the three in my head and planned, but I'm unsure if people will actually like it. I'll just have to take a leap of faith with it lol. And yeah, Percy is very fucking pissed right now, probably even more pissed than Zane last arc. And you'll see what happens when you get Annabeth back, lol. Also, about the crossover stuff, my squad will like Matt, after the initial fight between Zane and Matt is over. Matt is a good boy whose a lot like Jonathan Joestar, but with anger problems. And if Matt was the MC of my story, and everything went the exact same, he would have died when Koios dropped that heavy ass cube on him lol. Lol jk Echoxenvy. So if Matt was the MC, the whole Ouranos stuff wouldn't happen, or at least not yet, so Matt would still be completely good and have no darker side to him come out as he wouldn't have Viribus. But since Matt wouldn't be gay, because you know, I'm not exactly sure who his girlfriend would be. It would still probably be Harper, since I'm going to make it canon that she exists in my universe, as does Matt as a child right now, lol. And don't worry about long reviews, since I like answering all the questions in them. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter and it's not as wack as I anticipate it being.

SkeltonFlu:"His future self was totally going up against Kratos after he killed gods. I'm calling it."

Response: Not quite lol. You'll see eventually.

Shadowhunter2077: Glad that Zane pointed out how wrong was bringing Bianca in this quest, because in the canon she just goes to that quest to die do to her lack of expericence. And man I was searching for Nug and Yeb, I found that they are more cosmic and are not related to anything on Earth so is for the best to you focus in the Pontos thing. Also I have suggestion for you of powers for Zane, you could make him use wind to improve his attacks, like when All-Might uses his attacks in Buko no Hero or when Guy fought Madara in 8th Gate form. And the next question is kind of dumb, but if Zane liked girls who would you pair him with? I not asking to change Zane sexuality just curious."

Response: Yes, bringing Bianca on a quest to literally try and save a god when like three nights prior she was just a normal girl was probably the dumbest thing in the entire book. Okay, so no Nug and Yeb then. And about Zane using wind to improve his attacks, you'll see in this chapter lmao. Also, if Zane liked girls, I probably would have just made Taylor into a girl instead of a boy. Anyway, sorry for the delay and I hope you like this chapter.

FabulousOutlaw58: "If you had to pick a theme song for Zane, what would it be? I personally think "Shoot to Thrill" or "One For The Money" fits him"

Response: Look up Okuyasu's Theme but it's Epic. That's Zane's theme in my opinion.

Xaqzi: "I binged this story in a couple of days. First I'll start with the pros and what I liked.

1. The fight scenes are descriptive and exciting. I believe this is the strongest feature of the story, and my biggest compliment towards it. The battle scenes are nothing short of amazing.

2. I rarely like OC's, but yours feel real and likeable. Zane's development and redemption is masterful and original in any fanfiction I've read.

3. The comedy is good, I found myself laughing many times, especially at some of Zane's inner thoughts.

4. You focus on the canon characters just as much as the OC's, even adding some more elements that weren't in the books.

Now the cons.

1. The formatting is long and not spaced out enough. It makes it a bit harder to follow. The first few chapters did it fine and it was spaced out normally, but lately there have been ten sentence paragraphs and long passages. Not a huge deal but still a flaw in my eyes.

2. The romance is good but is mentioned a little too much.

3. Some of the dialogue is a bit rushed.

4. Some grammar mistakes and misspelled words. But you've stated the reason why and that's fine, I just wanted to point it out.

Please don't take the cons as a flame, because I do really like this story, and only wanted to give some constructive criticism. This fic is good and I can't write any better haha. Either way, I enjoyed it and I can't wait for the next chapter. Hope it's out soon."

Response: Okay, so a review with actual valid criticism. So thanks for reading the story, it's my baby lol. So the fighting is the best part of the story? That figures, because it's the part I enjoy writing the most. I just love fight scenes and I've always been good at imagining them. And the OCs are actually likable? I'm glad I did a good job with Zane, because my goal was to create an OC that would actually blow every other FanFiction out of the water, and hopefully I'll succeed in that regard. And good comedy? I thought the comedy was a bit meh, mostly since it exists to mostly fill up word count a lot of the times, so that's something that's nice. And yes, I try to focus on the canon characters a lot because if I only focused on OCs, the canon characters would feel hollow and forced. Okay, now on to the criticism. So about the formatting, it changed when I started being more descriptive with characters thoughts and the feelings of battle, as I've had more freedom with the characters minds when they've become more developed to the story. Sorry if the long paragraphs get to you, but that's something that probably won't change much in the future. So the romance being mentioned too much is something I completely agree with, especially in the earlier chapters. I think it's fine now as it's kinda the main focus at the moment, but I'll try to do better in the future. And the dialogue rushed sometimes is true, as I try to get 15k words into a chapter and sometimes that's too little for my normal drawn out dialogue, so sometimes I am forced to rush. It's something I hate to do, but sometimes you have to get the story underway and stop dilly dallying around. And yes, the misspelling and grammar mistakes come from this fucking ipad, so sorry about that. I'm trying to get better with writing in this damn thing lol. And the criticism is appreciated, as an author cannot get better if he is only surrounded by yes men all the time. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Alright, enough with reviews. Let's blow this pop-stand.

(Disclaimer: I don't own anything portrayed here (Except the OCs). If the fact that this is on a FanFiction site didn't tip you off, you're fucking retarded.)

(000)

I sighed as I walked along the subway tracks underneath the ground alongside my friends. The past couple of hours have been rather hectic, as we've had to hop from train to train to avoid the grey men, who now apparently numbered in the hundreds. Initially we could escape them by hopping on a different train, but now there were so many they were starting to actually board the trains and blend in with the passengers.

Don't ask me how they did it, since we should have spotted them easily due to their skin tone. We had a few close calls with a couple of really large groups of dozens of the grey warriors, which me and Percy had to hold off while our friends escaped. Both me and the son of Poseidon had killed hundreds of the fuckers by now, and they've shown no signs of stopping.

There must really be a lot of those stupid teeth Luke uses to make them. Eventually, the bastards stopped attacking us and we got out of their sight. Either we've killed all the ones Luke has grown so far, or the more worrying option, Luke has told them to stay back for some reason. Whatever reason it may be, I had no clue of.

I walked beside Taylor on the tracks, the two of us in the middle of our group. Zoe led the party, as she was the leader of the quest, with Grover tagging along beside her, no doubt trying to impress her in some way. In the back of our group was a three man group of Percy, Nico and Thalia, all of them silent and vigilant for any additional attacks that could happen. If I had normal human durability, or just lower than I normally did, I would probably be freezing right now, as the tracks were covered in melted snow and water as it led out of the subway system and onto actual train tracks.

Our group was suspicious as we went out into the open tracks, ready for any more of the swarms of the grey men, but nothing came. Not dropping our guard, we trudged along the tracks, not actually covered in snow completely. We walked for a couple of miles, before Taylor, tired of the walking, asked me, "Why can't we just fly to where we need to go!? You and Percy could probably cover the entire country in seconds, probably even less than that! Why do we have to walk everywhere like it's medieval times?" Yeah, he was definitely annoyed at the moment, as the irritation in his voice painted a clear picture.

I shook my head with a small smile on my face, finding his annoyed antics cute. "Well, for one, we can only go that fast whenever we're at our full power, so our auras would light up our location like a Christmas tree and Atlas and Luke would find us in an instant. I don't know how powerful Luke has gotten, but Atlas is currently more than enough to kill all of us easily, so that would definitely be a no-go."

Taylor's expression morphed from an annoyed one to an impassive and irritated expression. Okay, he was so beautiful it hurt. "Secondly, we don't know exactly where we need to go at the moment. Remember, we're heading west right now, but we don't exactly have a concrete location. We're just trying to escape the grey men at the moment before we actually settle for a destination."

I smirked, putting a third finger up. "And lastly, it's way more fun and enjoyable to do things this way. I wouldn't really get to talk and hang out with you nearly as much back at camp, so we get more time to bond." I finished with a small smile, a slight blush coming over my face.

The blush was returned on the son of Ares' face, and he also smiled. "You're right, Zane. I guess things would be less enjoyable if we just flew around like superheroes and didn't take our time with things. Speaking of flying, will you take me with you one day?" I raised my eyebrow and must of looked confused, so Taylor elaborated for me. "I mean could we just, you know, fly around one day? Like not even go anyway, just vibe around in the sky together."

Taylor's face grew more red as he talked, as if he was embarrassed or something. He continued to speak, however. "Back during the whole Sea of Monsters thing, flying on the plane back to camp was amazing. It made me wonder what it would be like to fly like you do up in the sky. I would always see you above camp flying with Thalia over the past few months, and it really made me want to be up there with you." Taylor's blush deepened and he looked away from me. "I'm sorry if that sounds stupid or something."

I chuckled, causing the son of Ares to look back at me. I shook my head. "It's not stupid, Taylor. I think it's really cute actually." He blushed again, and I continued. "I think I can take you up there someday, but not right now. We can't be giving away our position to the grey men. But anyway, I think you would probably love flying if you liked flying in a plane."

I continued. "It's probably one of the best feelings you could possibly have. It's like free falling, but instead of just constantly dropping, you can control where you want to go. It's like being in a swimming pool, but there's no water weight holding you down. It's amazing." I turned to Taylor, noting that our hands had unconsciously entwined with each other while I was talking. "As soon as we're done with this quest, I'll take you flying. Is that alright?" I asked Taylor with a raised eyebrow and a smile.

Taylor face lit up like a candle and he gave me a bright grin. "Yes! That would be so awesome!" Seeing Taylor's smiling face made my heart beat quicker and my own face heat up. How the hell was I supposed to choose between him or Nico? Both of them were absolutely jaw droppingly beautiful, both of them had their own unique and cool personality and both of them loved me. I was in both the best and worst position ever. Best because I had two of these amazing people who loved an absolute wretch like me, and worst because I couldn't choose between them without breaking the others heart.

Before I could say anything else to the son of Ares, our group walked near an old homeless looking man sitting beside a barrel with fire in the inside. The old man waved us over with a toothless grin. "Y'all need to get warmed up? Come on over here!" The old man had a southern accent, something rather rare where we were at the moment. The old man was referring to my friends, who were all shivering from the cold as we walked on the railroad. I hadn't really noticed how cold they all were, as the temperature didn't really affect me through my invulnerable skin.

Only something like absolute zero temperature could make me even feel uncomfortable, so this weather was nothing. We sat down beside the fire with the old man, my friends debating on whether we should contact camp or not. Zoe shut any of that talk down as quickly as possible. She said we were alone on this quest and couldn't receive any help from others.

After Zoe's words, the old man chimed in. "Y'know, you're never completely without friends." When the man said these words, I felt some kind of aura come from him. Every being had some kind of aura, even mortals, and this man's aura was different from them. "You kids need a train west?" My eyebrow raised and intended up. How the hell does this guy know that?

Percy, however, was not suspicious and took the opportunity to answer the old man truthfully. "Yes, sir. Do you know of any?" Percy's tone was respectful and kind, as to not rise anything from the man. Percy's gaze was serious and he wasn't in any mood to joke around. The cold probably made him miserable, as unlike me, his skin didn't seem to protect him from the cold as well. Probably a son of Poseidon thing with water or something.

The old man, instead of verbally answering, simply raised his hand and pointed in the direction behind us. I felt his aura change slightly and I turned around along with my group to see what he was pointing at. Sitting on the tracks was a completely pristine and not snowy freight train, carrying triple decker rows of luxury cars covered by a steel mesh curtain.

The side of the train said 'Sun West Line.' Okay, this old man wasn't normal. We turned back to him and Percy opened his mouth to say his thanks. "That's convenient as hell. Uh...thanks, ma-" By the time Percy had fully turned around along with all of us, the old man was nowhere to be seen. Even the fire in the barrel was gone, as if put out by the man. Okay, that guy was definitely not normal.

(000)

I leaned my head back against the seat in the Mustang as the sound of the train chugging along the tracks rung through my mind. There were almost a dozen different luxury cars on the freight train we were hitching a ride on, but our group had chosen three different ones. I had chosen to sit in a Mustang with Taylor and Nico, who had followed me to said car. Nico was currently asleep in the back seat, laying across both of the seats as if it was a bed.

Taylor was sitting in the passenger seat repainting his nails to a slightly brighter red color and I was in the driver seat simply sitting and watching the landscape go by through the steel curtain. Our party had split into three groups, with me, Taylor and Nico in this car, Percy and Thalia in a Mercedes that Thalia had hot wired and was blasting Green Day, and Zoe had chosen a Lamborghini to reside in, which Grover had followed her to like a stalker or something.

I wasn't exactly sure where the train was going to take us, but right now I was going to enjoy the peace and quiet before whatever came next on the quest. Before I could fall asleep in the car seat, I felt a prod on my shoulder. I opened my eyes to find that it was Taylor. "Taylor? What is it?"

Taylor's expression was worried and filled with concern, which immediately woke me up and filled me with worry and concern as well. "Zane, I just have to ask." My eyebrow raised as Taylor's words, and I nodded for Taylor to continue speaking. "Do you think we're actually ready for this quest?" I was confused by Taylor question and was about to ask him what he exactly meant by that, but the son of Ares elaborated for me.

"I just feel like we're not ready for this. I mean, you saw and felt what Luke did to you back on Polyphemus' island. He nearly killed you then and you told me he was able to fight you directly. That was six months ago, and who knows what he's capable of now?" Taylor's expression became even more worried. "Not to mention Atlas. I heard that he nearly killed you with nothing but a flick." Taylor sighed, the stress building up on his face. "I'm just worried we're just marching towards our deaths here. You know what I mean?"

I was silent for a few seconds, mulling Taylor's words over in my head. After a few moments, I spoke. "I do, Taylor." Taylor looked at me and silently motioned for me to continue. "I know more that anyone else here really, besides Percy. You heard correctly about Atlas, how he nearly killed me with nothing but a flick. He wasn't even trying against me and Percy, and the two of us are stronger than most of the gods on Olympus."

I sighed and put a hand to my forehead, the memories of Atlas destroying me flashing in my mind. "I don't want to even imagine how strong Atlas is at full power. Not to mention whether Luke is more powerful or not. He looks so different than the last time I saw him, and his aura is almost completely different. We're basically walking in to this whole thing blind and I really don't like it. But we don't really have a choice, otherwise the upcoming war could be in the favor of the Titans and Artemis will be lost." I looked at Taylor with a determined expression. "We have to face the both of them no matter what. Even if the idea is daunting. The other decision is certainly worse for us."

Taylor sighed, unfortunately not at all put to ease by my words. "You're right, Zane. I suppose we really don't have a choice in the matter. I just hope that we're ready for what comes next." Taylor yawned, the exhaustion of today really showing on him. Taylor started to move towards the back seat where Nico was. "Well, I'm completely beat. I'm going to try to get at least a little bit of sleep before we get to wherever it is before we get there. Good night, Zane. Be on the lookout for those grey men."

I nodded at his words as he laid down on the back seat beside Nico. Seeing the both of them sleep side by side let me see how beautiful both of them were, which was something I could never get out of my mind. I yawned as I looked at the landscape going by quickly. I reached out with my aura sense, trying to find the grey men to see if they were following us, but finding nothing. I yawned again and was about to drift off to sleep in my car seat before I felt an aura shift beside me in the seat Taylor was just in.

I quickly turned my head to the right where I sensed the aura, only to find the same old homeless man that had pointed out the very freight train we were hitching a ride on to us. I resisted the urge to grab him by the throat and interrogate him on who he was, as the man could have said nothing when we asked him about any trains west. If anything this 'man' likely wasn't a man at all and was likely something much more. Time to find out who this was.

I glared at the 'man', who had a toothless smirk on his face. "Who are you?" I reached out with my aura sense, trying to figure out who this person was based on his aura. His aura was being hidden, well hidden, but I could make out a slight sliver of power within him that felt very similar to some certain blond haired arrogant assholes back at camp. Of course, his sister was currently missing so of course he would want something to do with this quest. I nodded before the god could speak. "Ah, Apollo. What exactly are you doing here?"

Apollo didn't exactly look surprised that I had found out who he was before he could tell me, as I had done with other gods in the past. His visage of a old, nasty looking homeless man melted away, revealing the look of a handsome blood guy who looked to be about eighteen. I was surprised how good looking he was, but then shook the thoughts from my mind. Apollo, still wearing the homeless man outfit put a finger over his mouth. "I'm incognito right now. Call me Fred."

I stared at the god of the sun with a deadpan expression. I wasn't going to call him that. Apollo continued, despite my stare at him. "I think you can guess why I'm here, brother. While father insists on certain rules due to some pesky ancient laws written by the Fates, I'm taking matters into my own hands this time. No one messes with our sister, Brother. Nobody." Apollo scowled a little as he said that, his smiling expression shifting.

"I've already spoken to our cousin, Percy, about what is happening. This train will give you cover from the grey warriors as it takes you across the country and continue to hide you from Atlas and Luke Castellan. However, I don't have too much time left to give you cover. It is almost sunset and Helios will get the chariot from me soon, and unlike me, Helios is a real stickler for rules." Apollo looked outside at the setting sun, a frown forming on his face.

"As I've already told Percy, you need to seek out Nereus, The Old Man of The Sea. He is somewhere in San Francisco at the moment. Percy will explain to you why you must find him." Apollo looked back from the sunset to me. "In any case, you need to get some rest right now. In the morning you'll have to be on your way and you need all the energy you can get." Apollo snapped his fingers dramatically, only for nothing to happen. He looked confused, and tried to snap his fingers again, but the result was the same. He looked back from his finger to me, a sheepish look on his face. "Uh..."

I rolled my eyes, knowing I was unconsciously resisting his ability to put me to sleep. "I'll just fall asleep naturally, brother. Anyway, thanks for the heads up. I promise, we will rescue Artemis from whatever has captured her." Apollo, his face serious, nodded at my words and he vanished from my sight as if he teleported. I have to learn how to do that one day. I closed my eyes, letting myself slide off into Morpheus' realm.

(000)

"Zane, wake up!" I groaned as I was awakened from my slumber and my eyes inched open ever so slightly. I saw Taylor, looking beautiful as ever, shaking me awake from outside the car. The metal curtains had already been pulled back and I saw everywhere gathering our things and getting ready. "The trains stopped. We have to get a move on." I nodded at his words and pulled myself from the amazingly comfortable seats of the Mustang and gathered my items.

As we left the freight train with the rest of my party, I noticed Percy looked a little shaken up and was subtly giving Zoe looks from time to time, but I didn't think anything of it. As we walked from the train tracks, I saw a town around a mile away and close by was a sign that said 'Welcome To Cloudcroft, New Mexico.' Well, we were now a lot further west than we were originally, so that was a plus. As we entered the town, Taylor told me how Percy had already told everyone about Apollo showing up and telling us of our new destination. I backed up Percy's words, saying Apollo had said something very similar to me last night as well.

We finally stopped walking once we reached the middle of town, and this town was as small town as you could get. There was a small school, some local restaurants, a few ski cabins for the mountains nearby, and a couple of grocery stores. Thalia, having taken a good look at our surroundings, groaned. "Great. No bus stations, no car rental, no taxi, nothing. We're fucked." Grover was quick to point out that there was food in the restaurants as well as coffee shops.

Ever the optimist, eh Grover? Thalia rolled her eyes at Grover's word. "If you're so fixated on coffee Grover, why don't you take Zoe and go get some. Me, Nico and Taylor will go to that grocery store over there to get some supplies and ask some people for some directions." Thalia turned to me and Percy. "Zane, you and Percy stay out here to keep a lookout. You two are our big guns." I nodded at her words, and our group split into three different parties.

I motioned Percy to follow me, and we sat down on a nearby bench by the road. The two of us did our best to look relaxed when truthfully we were ready for action at any moment. I was unnerved by this entire town. I don't really understand why, but I just got this off feeling. Not by the town, per say, but I just felt this atmosphere that put me on edge.

Having enough of this and keeping to myself, I decided to strike up a conversation with Percy. "Back at the train, you looked pretty shaken up. Dreams again?" Percy didn't say anything, but he did nod at my words. "I saw you looking at Zoe as well. Did it have anything to do with her or Artemis?" I knew I was prying, but I needed something to take my mind of the feeling I was currently experiencing.

Percy sighed and didn't bother to hide anything anymore. "Yes. It did have something to do with her. In fact, it had everything to do with her." He sighed again, as if he was trying to find the words to continue. "In the dream, I was in the garden of the Hesperides, and Zoe was leading me through it. She keep talking about how Ladon was too strong and how I couldn't fight him, despite me saying I could. I was different as well. I can't really describe it."

Percy was getting off topic and he knew it. "Anyway, in the dream, she was trying to lead me past Ladon and to go straight to her father but I wanted to fight him. She then gave me Riptide, and said her mother had used the weapon. Then Ladon Attacked us and then I woke up." Percy sighed again, as if troubled by the dream he had. "What did that Dream mean?"

Luckily for him, I think I have decided what had happened. "You were Heracles in the dream." Percy looked at me, surprised by my words. "Ladon was the one who guarded the Golden Apples of the garden, and he was killed by Heracles. And Zoe was trying to lead you to her father, to which there is now no doubt in my mind that it is Atlas." Percy looked a little shook, but he didn't exactly look surprised. I continued. "I mean, think about it. You and me both know that their auras feel similar, like that of a god and their child and this dream just cements my hypothesis even more."

I put a hand to my chin. "In the original version of the myth, it made no mention of either Riptide or Zoe. Perhaps the story has been warped over the past three thousand years?" I shook my head. "It doesn't really matter. Honestly, it also doesn't matter that Atlas is Zoe's father. If anything, she hates him more than us, given her reaction when I told her that I saw him at the museum. We really shouldn't bring it up to her for no good reason." Percy nodded at my words, agreeing with me. Before I could say anything else, I felt a shift of aura around the town. As if I felt thousands of different beings come into existence all at once. I stiffened as I felt the auras and turned to look at Percy, who had done the exact same as me.

"You feel that?" I nodded at Percy's words and we both looked in the respective directions each group of our party went. "The grey men are here. And it seems there are a lot more of them this time." Percy spoke both of our thoughts aloud. "You go grab Thalia, Nico and Taylor. I'll get Zoe and Grover. We have to get out of here and do it fast."

I nodded, not bothering to bring up any stupid objections to Percy plan and I zoomed off towards the grocery store at top speed, creating a burst of wind where I had once stood and cracking the concrete ground. I instantly appeared in the grocery store and looked around, seeing everyone and everything in the store nearly frozen. This is how the world looked when I started to use my real speed. I found Thalia, Nico and Taylor at a register, speaking to one of the workers who looked absolutely dead inside. Thalia was the one doing the talking, as the two people I loved most stood behind her.

I appeared in front of them in an instant and resumed at my normal speed, the speed of everyone returning to normal immediately. Thalia was still in the middle of speaking to the worker, but she stopped when she realized I was standing in front of her. "Zane?!" She immediately brought her voice to a lower level and continued.

"What the fuck? You can't just be super speeding in front of regular mortals like that. You'll draw people's attention." She noticed the apparent alarm on my face and her expression morphed into one of concern. "Zane? What's wrong?" She asked, her voice returning to a normal level.

I didn't waste time explaining right away. I just returned to my top speed and grabbed all three of them as quick as I could and brought them all back to the bench where me and Percy had been sitting at. Percy was already back at the spot with both Zoe and Grover. Hm, seems he couldn't be bothered to appear in front of them before he grabbed them, huh?

I placed Thalia, Nico and Taylor all on the bench and resumed at my normal speed. Everyone looked confused at the sudden change in position, even Taylor, who could already move at incredible speeds. Before anyone could say anything, I took the initiative and held up my hands. "Before you say anything, I need to explain the situation first."

Everyone fell into silence and I continued. I motioned to the town around us. "All around the town, I felt thousands of familiar auras come into existence out of nowhere. Auras at least as powerful as you, Thalia. Everyone knows what that means. The grey men are here and there is way more of them this time. We need to get out of here right now."

Everyone was silent for a second, the situation starting to dawn on them as they absorbed my words. Surprisingly, the first person to speak was Nico. "What do we do then? Only you and Percy are capable of fighting those things straight up with no issue and you said there was thousands of them surrounding the town. Not to mention you said you couldn't use your forms earlier while we were escaping D.C. because Luke and Atlas would know our exact location if you did. What are we supposed to do?" Nico asked, motioning to everyone besides me and Percy as he did so.

My eyes hardened and my face tightened. I wouldn't let anything bad happen to Nico. Not in a million years. "You guys steal a car, truck or any sort of transportation and head straight to San Francisco. Me and Percy will draw the grey men away from you guys and this town and face them head on. We'll hold them off for a little while." I looked to Percy to back me up, and I saw him nod out of the corner of my eye. Good. But of course, something had to happen, mainly in the form of Zoe.

Zoe stood up from the bench and glared at me with fierce eyes. "If I remember correctly, I am the leader of this quest, not thee." I nearly rolled my eyes at her hardheadness. Now was not the time for this. But her reasons were not as dumb as I anticipated. "As much as I dislike the two of thee, I cannot under good conscience leave the two of thee here to die at the hands of those monsters."

She crossed her arms and looked away, almost as if it was out of embarrassment. "Besides, without the two of thee, we would stand no chance against Atlas and Luke. We need thee." She looked like she was swallowing a lemon when she said it, but she grinded out the words. I almost felt touched by the apparent concern of the Hunter, but we didn't have time for this.

I didn't back down in the slightest. "We don't have time for this shit!" Everyone, even Percy flinched at the sound of me raising my voice. "If me and Percy cant defeat a bunch of monsters like the grey men, we would be absolutely useless to you in taking down Atlas. Take everyone else and get out of here, now. You will all die if you stay here."

I decided to hit her where it would hurt the most. "You won't be able to save Artemis if you're dead." Zoe's determination crumbled at my words and she looked down at the ground. Sensing no more resistance from her, I continued speaking to the rest of the group. "Now, make a beeline towards San Francisco and try to find Nereus. Me and Percy will catch up with you after we deal with these bastards, understand?" Everyone nodded and I turned back to Percy. "Alright, let's get to it."

Thalia, leading the group, immediately found the nearly driving car and threw the mortal driver out of it. The driver tried to resist and argue, but Thalia used her most manipulation on them, forcing them to run away from the car. Seeing as the rest of our group had a moving vehicle as transport, I turned away with Percy and we prepared to race out of town and draw the grey men away from it. But a soft hand on my shoulder stopped me in my tracks.

I turned around to find Taylor holding me in place. I opened my mouth to ask what was it he needed, only for the son of Ares' lips to meet mine before I could say anything. I was shell shocked and stood in place for about a second, before I reciprocated the kiss in front of everyone.

I can't believe he was bold enough to kiss me in front of literally everyone, but right now I wasn't going to complain. Once the kiss broke, Taylor looked at me, a bright smile on his face. "Make sure you come back to me." All I could do was dumbly nod as he got into the car and they took off without another word. I did catch Nico staring at the son of Ares, a scowl on his face very clearly.

I turned around, trying to pretend that didn't happen as I stood beside the son of Poseidon. He snickered after he saw my attempt at a serious face. "Shut up." I muttered as I stared off into the mountains outside of town. I pointed at a range of mountains about a few miles away from the town. "We'll take them over there, alright." Percy nodded at my words, now fully serious.

Both of us moved faster than any radar on Earth could detect towards the mountains, trying to create enough distraction and commotion for the grey men to follow us. The move worked, as I felt thousands of auras start to follow us at speeds quicker than fighter jets. The grey men were fast, but me and Percy made them look like disabled old men with our speed and we reached the mountains in a blink of an eye.

I felt the grey men approach our position as me and Percy stood in a snow filled valley and waited for the grey men to reach us. It would only be about ten or fifteen seconds. "Are you ready for this, Percy?" I asked the son of Poseidon as lightning surrounded my hands.

Percy unclipped his pen and his sword Riptide burst into life. He lifted his hands and manipulated some of the snow on the ground into water, forming different constructs such as spikes and blades out of them. "Absolutely." As the words left Percy's mouth, the valley began to become filled to the brim with shapes off in the distance.

As the shapes got closer, I could see the grey men clearly, the monsters savagely rushing at us like a pack of zombies. There were literally thousands, no, tens of thousands of them. The valley started to literally darken with how many of the monsters were charging us as me and Percy reader ourselves for the incoming horde.

The first thing I did was charge my fist with lightning as the horde of grey men rushed towards us, and when the first monster got within melee range, I slammed my lightning encased fist directly into the chest of the grey man, creating massive explosion of lightning than incinerated it and dozens of grey men behind the first monster. Percy warped the water constructs in the air and flung them at the grey men, slicing and impaling the monsters all over to disable them and set me up to finish them off.

I charged a bolt of lightning and sent it off into the direction of a large group of grey men being harassed and attacked by Percy's water and annihilated them with no remorse. The grey men started to surrounded us, so the two of us engaged the monsters in hand to hand combat. The grey men stood absolutely no chance in melee with us, even as they numbered in the tens of thousands. A single punch and slash from me and Percy was enough to disable them completely and allow me to finish them off with a blast of lightning that destroyed them on the atomic level.

We kept this up for several minutes, with me using my incredible strength and competent fighting skills combined with lightning to destroy the grey men, and Percy using his sword to slice them to pieces and his water abilities to slash, crush and impale the bastards with ease. We were fighting at a level most demigods and monsters couldn't even comprehend, much less keep up with. Even the grey men, even one of them being on par with a demigod like Thalia and Nico, couldn't even step to us when they numbered in the thousands.

However, it wasn't to last for very long. We were starting to get overwhelmed in the melee aspect, as we were literally having to fight thousands at once. It felt like a scene straight out of 300, as we had to fight in a small circle with the two of us back to back facing down innumerable amounts of foes. "Enough!" I shouted, throwing my hands out and creating a burst of wind.

The wind blast blew every grey man in the immediate vicinity of several hundred feet back and gave me and Percy some space to recover. The grey men weren't disoriented for long, but long enough for me and Percy to gain our focus back. Percy nodded his thanks to me, which I returned. The son of Poseidon then suddenly punched the ground in the direction of a large group of grey men, creating an earthquake which caused rocks to crush and trap the grey men.

I raised an eyebrow at the use of his vibration manipulation. I didn't know he could do that outside of his Earthshaker Form. I saw a bead of sweat drip down the side of his head, painting a picture to me that it was probably difficult to use that power in his base. I turned back to my incoming side of the grey men and created a whirling sphere of wind in my hand.

"Have some of this!" I yelled, releasing the wind towards the monsters. The small sphere of pressurized wind then grew into a massive wall of the same pressurized wind, shredding a good chunk of the grey men into pieces. I then shot a burst of lighting at the torn remains of the monsters, finishing them off for good.

The fight continued like this for some odd thirty minutes or so. More than enough time for the rest of our group to create some distance between us and the grey men. But the hordes of the monsters didn't stop whatsoever. There must of been more grey men than I though, because I'm pretty sure I killed more than a couple thousand of them by now and it looked like the same amount still remained.

I created a blast of wind in front of me, mixing it with some lightning to give it some lethality, to create some distance between the grey men and me and Percy. The blast hit my side of the grey men and killed quite a few. I turned back to Percy, finding him destroying grey men all around him with incredible precision and ease. Well, to anyone else it would look easy, but I could tell he was starting to falter slightly.

His movements were starting to slow down a bit and his control over his powers were starting to get a little wobbly. Not to mention the sweat sliding down his face and the slight panting of his breath. I created a burst of chain lighting, hitting all of the enemies he currently had trapped in a sphere of water he was about to tear to pieces, killing all of the grey men within. He turned to me, an annoyed look on his sweaty face. "I had that."

I nodded, not bothering with any joke or jest in a situation like this. "I know, I just wanted to make it easier on you. You look tired right now." He didn't bother to try and claim that he wasn't. Percy hadn't been training consistently for the past six months since the sea of monsters. He told me he's only be training off and on, which kinda impresses me, since he's so ridiculously skilled with his sword.

But his control and his powers were starting to wane, especially since we couldn't go full power in this fight as Atlas and Luke would find us in an instant. The auras of the grey me definitely muddled ours right now. Before I could say anything else, the grey men had regrouped and more of the horde charged us. Percy punched the ground and created more shockwaves amongst the incoming monsters, crushing and trapping them once more.

He breathed slightly heavy after the maneuver and stood up from his previously knelt position. I shook my head, disapproving of the casual use of his power like that. "Percy, you need to keep the use of your earth shaking powers at a minimum. I can tell using it in your base form drains you and you don't have too much energy left as it is. Stick to using your sword and your water right now." Percy nodded at my suggestion, knowing I was right in this situation.

Me and Percy both readied ourselves once more and prepared to do battle with the monsters. The grey men charged us with more ferocity this time, putting pressure on both me and the son of Poseidon. I lifted my arms towards my half of the grey men horde, creating small, mini thunderstorms amidst them that charged lighting throughout them, killing several of the grey monsters. I also created slashes of diagonal pressurized wind, cutting the monsters to bits and finishing them off with my lighting.

I saw Percy creating thousands of water needles from the snow to pierce the grey men's vital areas to stop their movement. I also saw his arms shift into their watery forms, grabbing clusters of grey men and crushing them into grey, gory powder with a single hand movement. His arms shifted into watery blades and elongated, becoming twenty foot blade made out of water that were currently cleaving through grey men by the dozens.

I sent a few blasts of lighting at the sliced up grey men on Percy's side, helping him take the grey men out permanently. I could see the sweat and stress on Percy's face, and I didn't know how much longer he had left in this fight. I decided to do something that would buy us a little bit more time than normal.

I charged my energy within myself, and the sky started to darken. The grey men paused for a second, seeing the sudden change in weather and no doubt feeling the change in my aura. Wind started to pick up around my position, pressurizing around my form. The wind started to form into a twister, which started to rip apart the ground where I stood. I floated in the air, being propelled by the wind around me and I charged my hands with lightning.

I touched the tornado I formed, sending the lighting gathered in my hand all throughout the twister. I channeled my energy into the storm building overhead, allowing lighting to rain down power onto the grey men. I moved the twister into the horde, hearing the spinning spiral of power rip apart and incinerate anything that it touched. Felt the grey men die by the hundreds every second, and then reach into the thousands of casualties. But I felt no change in the auras around us.

It seemed that there was an infinite amount of grey men coming after us. I finally had enough and thought that I had bough enough time, and decided to release the power in every direction. Grey men for hundreds of feet were either incinerated or blown away as the twister unraveled and everything returned to normal. I touched down beside Percy, whose eyes were wide by the display and control of my power. "Holy shit, I didn't even know you could do something like that."

I smirked at Percy's amazement, before squashing the pride building up in me with a vengeance. No arrogance here. I shook my head. "It was nothing too special. Just created a tornado and filled it with lightning. No big deal." Percy rolled his eyes at my words. I continued to speak.

"Alright, I think I've bought us enough time. Now, I can tell you're exhausted and you need to get the hell out of here immediately. With the rate this fight is going, you won't be at peak condition for more than five more minutes. You need to go, now." I tried to put on a tone that brokered no argument from the son of Poseidon, but it seems Percy wasn't having it.

Percy shook his head furiously. "No. Hell no." When my look became more stern, Percy still didn't give in. Instead, he tried to appeal to me with facts and logic. Percy shook his head once more. "Zane, you can't be serious. I'll be damned if I let you stay behind and fight these damn things all by yourself. Not to mention Taylor would kill me if something happened to you."

Well, he would try but more than likely fail thanks to Percy's insane strength. "And without you our chances at taking down Atlas and Luke are next to none. There's no fucking way I'm leaving you here by yourself." Percy motioned to the stunned grey men, who were slowly starting to recover from my lightning tornado. "Plus, there's no way I could even leave if I wanted to. We're completely boxed in and surrounded right now. There's no way out."

I looked around the two of us, trying to find a way for Percy to escape, only to find none. Percy was right, as much as I hated to admit it. I looked up at the sky, an idea coming to my mind. Well, he was almost right. "Well, Percy...there's one way out." I pointed at the sky, causing the son of Poseidon to turn his head up in the direction of my hand. While Percy's back was turned, I slammed an extended hand right into the back of his neck as hard as I could, creating a small shockwave that reverberated off of Percy and knocked the son of Poseidon out in a single blow.

Percy's eyes rolled into the back of his head and he fell to the ground with a groan. I sighed as I picked Percy up off the ground. "Sorry, Percy. There's no way I would have been able to convince you to get out of here. You left me no other choice." I knew Percy couldn't hear me right now, and when he saw me again, he would no doubt be pissed but right now his life was more important than his pride or even my life, so he could be mad at me all he wanted to be.

I reached out with my aura sense, finding the traveling auras of our groups facing down the highway in a moving vehicles. I tried my best to line up the trajectory and threw Percy like a missile in the direction of my friends, creating a sonic boom as he flew through the sky away from the battlefield. "Be safe, man." I took a depth breath, knowing I could finally let loose without the son of Poseidon being here.

I cracked my knuckles and faced down the horde of monsters before me, the grey men finally having recovered from my lightning tornado I had hit them with earlier. "Come at me, bitches." With those words, the grey men charged at me like a pack of rabid wolves, snarling and growling the entire way. I finally stopped holding back in my base form, and my power rose to its peak.

As the grey men entered melee range, I unleashed the full power of my aura, destroying hundreds of the within dozens of feet. Lightning danced off my form as the grey men outside of my aura range hesitated, likely feeling fear for the first time in their relatively short existence.

I didn't give them any time to think, as I crashed into them like a bat out of hell, whirling around like an angel of death that had descended from the heavens. I tore the grey men apart with my bare hands by the hundreds in seconds, which spurred the others into action and they charged at me once more. I mixed in lightning attacks as well as wind control with my normal melee, tearing into the massive horde with extreme efficiency.

No matter how many I killed, how many I destroyed at once, the grey men just kept on coming. Despite their initial fear at my supreme power earlier, they now were just brainlessly charging at me like a pack of zombies. However, I could keep this up all day. Unlike Percy, I had been pushing myself in training for the past six months straight, trying to move myself to new heights to take my mind of of Taylor and Arthur's relationship.

My stamina was something of legends at this point. I knew I could keep this up all day and there was nothing the grey men could even do about it. No matter how much of them were charging me, they could only really attack four or five at a time in every directions, and that was if I was just standing there.

As long as I had enough stamina, there could be millions of them and I could take down literally every single one of them without issue. I conjured lightning in one hand, sending it channeling brought hundreds at once with a simple hand wave. I channeled wind in another hand, sending another wall of pressurized wind to slice the grey men into bits as they approached me. I felt like an unstoppable god.

However, I knew no matter how long I could keep this up that Luke and Atlas would find this location, especially if all these grey men keep charging at one spot. I had to do my best to end this and I had to do it now. I stopped my whirlwind movements, standing in the middle of the massive never ending horde of the grey monsters and charged the wind around me. Lightning burst from my finger tips, charging the wind dome I had forged around me with lightning.

I was going to use the same technique I had used against the clashing rocks at the sea of monsters and wipe out all the grey men in an instant. The wind and lightning around me intensified as the grey men nearly reached my position. As soon as one of the monsters almost touched me, I released all the built up energy around me, sending an absolutely massive blast of pressurized wind and lightning in every direction. The blast smashed into the massive horde of the grey men, sending them flying back, the wind shredding every one of them to bits and the lightning incinerating some of them in an instant. However, the monumental blast did not have the intended effect I wanted it to.

I scowled as I saw the grey men all around me reform from shredded bone and grey gore back into their original shape, taking note that only small chunks were missing from the massive horde. Only the lightning could permanently put them down, the wind just disabled them. I wasn't sure how much energy it would take to summon a blast on the level to eradicate them all with just pure lightning, as it was harder to control lightning than it was wind and took a lot more energy.

Not to mention even my lightning doesn't immediately destroy them, no, it takes several seconds of constant surging to destroy even one of the grey men. I was sitting in a snow filled valley literally filled to the brim with regenerating grey men as far as the eye could see. I wasn't sure how many there were, but it had to have numbered in the hundreds of thousands.

I wasn't sure how much energy I would need to kill everyone of them quickly, as I knew I couldn't have much more time before Atlas and Luke found out what was going on and came this way. Then I was done for.

I released my aura, my power starting to split the clouds even in my base form from the ground. I was pushing my max power beyond its limit, as I believed I was going to need every scrap of power to pull this off successfully. I was going to expel pure lighting energy in all directions for several seconds straight over a distance of several miles to destroy the grey men.

I knew I could effortlessly do this in my Thunder Form, but my base form was a lot weaker. This was going to be risky. I began to build up energy in my body, preparing to destroy all of the grey men as quickly as possible, but I noticed they were not charging me all at once anymore. Even though all of them were finished healing, they still held back. Almost as if they were afraid. I guess I would have to come to them this time.

Charging forward with everything I had, roaring as I did so, I smashed into the hesitant horde in an instant. I charged my hands with lighting, blasting every grey man in sight with my power. This pissed the monsters off, and they began to attack me once more. All of the horde seemed to wake up from their fearful trance and I was beginning to be surrounded once more by the monsters.

I grinned. Perfect. I charged my power around my body, trying to bring out every single scrap of power my base form could manage. I wasn't sure how strong I needed to be to pull this off correctly and quickly, but I wasn't going to take any chances whatsoever here. I put everything into my aura, channeling lightning in a sphere all around me. I could feel the grey men trying to beat their way through, only to die as they tried.

I was going to go all out right here and give these bastards everything I had. After nearly a minute of charging and feeling like I was about to burst with energy, I let everything go. At first I didn't hear anything, but soon enough I could hear only surging. And then a large blasting sound. Imagine the sound of a speaker exploded and then multiple that sound by a billion. I couldn't see anything inside the sphere of blinding lightning I had forged from my power, but I could feel everything.

All the auras of the grey men, the monsters than numbered in the hundreds of thousands, they all vanished in seconds. I didn't keep the blast up for longer than just ten seconds, as I gave out after hitting the tenth measurement of time, but I didn't even need that long apparently. The grey men all died in less than three.

When my vision finally returned, I was met with the result of my last ditch move. My jaw dropped when I saw the destruction of the area around me, and I took on the full scale of what I had done. I'm glad I had lured the grey men a couple dozen miles away from the town we had just been in, because for as far as the eye could see, a massive crater had taken the place of where the snowy valley had once been. The area looked like some sort of rocky desert now from my blast.

The ground looked like scorched rock, as all the dirt and soil that had once sat above it had been annihilated. I tried to stand up to get a better view of my surroundings and what I had done, only to nearly fall over my own wobbly legs. I guess that move had taken a whole lot more out of me than I expected it to. I felt nearly powerless after the blast I had created. Completely and utterly drained. I hadn't felt this week since I had figured out I was a demigod, the day my mother died.

I searched aura with my aura sense, trying to find any grey men that might have survived my all or nothing blast, only to find nothing. I found exactly nothing, as all other life had been annihilated by me as well. I literally transformed miles of a snowy forest valley into a barren wasteland. Now that I was standing up and my mind was a little bit more clear as I had more time to recover, I could clearly see that the ground was not only rock like, but it had been burnt black by my lightning.

I knew I didn't have too much time before I was discovered here, either by mortals or Luke and Atlas. I had literally created what was basically a lighting nuke and released all of the energy while I had been fighting hundreds of thousands, if not millions of grey monster dudes. That was of course going to be drawing in all kinds of attention.

Under normal circumstances, I would just follow my friends auras and almost immediately appear at their location thanks to my immense speed, but right now I wasn't even sure I I could move faster than sound of all things. I felt weaker than a kitten, probably weak enough to where even low level monsters could probably kill me. But I had to get on the move no matter how tired and weak I was, as I knew if I stayed here monster would find me anyway and I would without a doubt die. With those thoughts on my mind, I readied myself and took off in the direction of my friends as quick as possible.

(000)

My first thought when I took off running in the burned crater that had used to be a snow filled valley was how absurdly slow I had become after releasing all my energy earlier. I mean, I wasn't even breaking the sound barrier. I could probably even be seen by regular human eyes. I bet there are cars that could go faster than me right now!

Even at a full sprint, I was probably not even topping two hundred miles per hour and it was draining whatever small amount of energy I had left. Even so, I pressured myself to leave the crater, which took a few minutes even at top speed. I was annoyed with how slow I was, as I was used to being able to instantaneously move from one place to another with no issue, and right now I was severely limited.

Over the next few hours, I followed the aura of my friends through the west side of the United States, stopping every few minutes to catch my breath and allow some of my stamina to recover. Remember, I was basically on complete fumes and I could only top around two hundred miles per hour at a full sprint, so I couldn't exactly catch up with my friends as I had to stop every few minutes for a few minutes, while my friends kept a steady pace.

I had to find a spot to hunker down and stay out of sight every single time I stopped, as I knew almost any monster could kill me as I was right now. Don't get me wrong, I was still strong as hell compared to normal people. On one stop, I accidentally slammed into a car and sent it flying nearly a dozen feet, leaving a nasty dent in the side.

Luckily no one was inside the vehicles, otherwise they would have received some quite nasty injuries. On another stop, I found I could still easily crush stone with my bare hands, so I was still crazy strong compared to normal mortals, but any of those feats were doable for almost any monster.

Eventually, the auras of my friends came to a stop for a few minutes, which allowed me to close at least some of the distance between them and me. I wasn't expecting to catch up to the, until they reached San Francisco, where when I arrived they could give me some ambrosia and nectar to restore my power and stamina. I ran forward for several minutes at top speed, trying to close some distance. I had to avoid some Scythian Dracanae I spotted by some trees on the way there, as I knew they would tear me to shreds right now.

After a few minutes passed, I was forced to find a tree to climb into and rest for a few minutes, trying to stay awake and not fall prey to exhaustion. After a few minutes passed and I felt energized enough to run some more, I felt the position of my friends auras change in an instant. Immediately out of nowhere, they moved several hundred miles of distance in an instant, creating more than triple the distance between them and me.

I would normally have been alarmed by the sudden and random event, but I was worried now. Either they had been transported closer to San Francisco or Percy had just ran them there with his super speed. While the son of Poseidon had been tired and exhausted from the battle with the grey men, he couldn't have even been a tenth as tired as I currently was at the moment. I knew there was no way I was catching up to them at all now, so I decided to stay in the tree to rest for the rest of the night, as darkness had fallen while I was running after my friends.

Over the course of the next few days, this same process repeated. When I had awoken from my slumber at the tree, I found only small amounts of my stamina had returned, along with my power. I guess that whole Vegeta Final Atonement thing had really drained me of my energy, not to mention hours of sprinting with little rest right after. I found I was faster, maybe topping three hundred miles per hour at full sprint. My energy was returning, slowly. My friends auras were even farther away now, by a couple hundred miles, but I did my best to make up for lost time.

I spent the entire day running, taking a break every ten minutes or so to catch my breath and assess my surroundings. Eventually, towards the end of the day, I found some sort of dam after running across a scorching hot desert. I felt the heat a lot more without my incredible durability protecting me, and I really hated being without it. The dam I found was massive, rising hundreds of feet in the air as it held back millions of tons of water. Or at least, it had held back millions of tons of water.

The interesting thing was, it looked like it had been the site of a intense battle, as the damn was basically destroyed and reduced to rubble. Mortal workers and law enforcement surrounded the entire site. I felt the echoes of my friends aura all throughout the destroyed dam, along with the echoes of monster energy as well.

However, when looking over the site with my own eyes, I saw dozens of familiar looking spikes riddled all over the ground that the workers simply didn't register. Thorn. He had been here, and judging how I could sense the auras of my friends a couple hundred miles away from here, the fight probably didn't go so well for him.

After seeing that, I left the dam and found a tree to spend the night in close by the destroyed structure. I wasn't as exhausted as I was yesterday, but I was still a far cry away even from the smallest display of my base forms Power. After I awoke from the second night of following after my friends, I found that even more of my energy had returned. My speed had almost doubled, bringing me up above six hundred miles per hour in terms of speed and I could feel my power starting to return to my muscles and aura.

I took off in the direction of my friends auras, which had stopped in one spot and was staying there. I could only assume they were in San Francisco now and I needed to find them as quickly as possible. I took a few hours, but I could tell I was getting closer to the city, as I found the highway leading towards it and the signs told me I was clearly going in the right direction. However, as soon as I found the highway, I could feel my friend's auras leave the city and start going in a northern direction away from the city.

I growled in annoyance, wishing that my friends just stayed hunkered down in one spot so I could just reach them for the sake of the gods. Upon focusing my aura sense on my friends more directly, I could feel Grover was no longer with the group. My eyebrow rose. Did Grover leave the group for something or, assuming the worst, die from battle or something? I could only hope this wasn't the case as I raced after the auras of my friends once more.

When I finally started to close in on my friends auras, night was falling once more and I was approaching a misty mountain range at high speed. I was tired once more after running a whole nother day, but not as tired as the past two days. Hopefully my group had some ambrosia and nectar to spare for me, otherwise I would be useless in the Atlas fight. Speaking of the Titan of Endurance, I could feel the Titans massive energy atop the summit of the mountain.

As I hiked up the mountain, jumping from rock to rock at superhuman speeds, I realized my battle with the Titan would be very soon. Six months ago, I probably would have smiled in anticipation as bloodthirst filled my body, but now, I simply steeped myself with determination.

I would be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to this, but my enjoyment of the fight was secondary. I had to protect my friends and the two people I loved, save Artemis and Annabeth and defeat Atlas and Luke to end the war before it begins. Easier said than done, but I knew I had no other choice.

As I started to get closer to the top of the mountain, I came into a garden of sorts. This was no ordinary garden, as golden apples hung from magnificent trees and other sorts of amazing looking plants filled the area. Feeling the aura of the apples, I could feel divine energy being radiated off of them, but it felt odd. Weak, or watered down. The apples felt like the minor gods on Olympus, the ones we had seen when returning the Master Bolt to my father.

Shaking the thoughts from my head, I could feel the auras of my friends very near by, almost within the range of my sight. Racing forward a few seconds, I found my friends standing around a large dead dragon like beast. Percy was the one with his sword covered in blood, as he looked like he did most of the fighting.

All of my other friends had their weapons drawn as well, though they likely played support in the fight with the beast. I noticed four other women that looked very familiar to Zoe nearby, but unlike the Lieutenant of Artemis, they were dead. I raced in front of my friends with a blur, startling all of them and they pointed their weapons at me. "Guess whose back." I said with a smirk on my face, although I felt nervous inside. They could have easily killed me if they had been a little more trigger happy thanks to my stupid stunt.

The group stood and stared at me in shock for a few moments, before they all reacted at once. I got a massive group hug from literally everyone except for Zoe, who just kind of awkwardly stood in the back. As soon as they were done hugging me, Taylor hit me directly on the shoulder, which actually hurt thanks to not having as much super durability at the moment. "We thought you were dead, you dumbass!"

Taylor had a pretty quick one eighty compared to his first reaction. He had another one because as soon as the words left his mouth, he put his lips on mine, kissing me in front of literally everyone. He realized what he was doing, and then pulled back and looked at me with a sheepish smile. I felt a little disappointed that he had broken the kiss, but also relieved because I don't know what I was going to do there. I quickly looked around, taking in everyone's reactions.

Zoe's face was unchanged, so I guess she didn't care. Both Percy and Thalia had knowing smirks on their faces, the bastards. And Nico didn't exactly look happy with Taylor's blatant public display of affection, a scowl planted on his face that he poorly tried to hide. "Um...so what exactly happened back in New Mexico with all those grey men, Zane?" Taylor asked, trying to pretend that didn't happen.

I started to explain what had happened over the past few days to my friends, how I had to run across the country with little to no energy and power while hiding amongst trees and such to survive and how I had tracked their auras. I told them that I had to use all of my energy to defeat the grey men with one massive attack to take them all out at once so Atlas and Luke didn't find me. "So the past few days for me were rather uneventful. What happened during that time for you guys?"

Apparently, their story was a lot more interesting than mine. After they picked up Percy in the desert where I had thrown him, they had drove to a convenience store to rest up for the night and buy some supplies, only to be found by Ares and Aphrodite. After Percy talked with the Goddess of Love, they had been teleported to the Junkyard of The Gods, without the vehicle they had stolen in New Mexico to escape the grey men.

Nico had taken a Myth-O-Magic figurine from the yard, which had awoken the guardian of the junkyard, a prototype version of Talos, a creation of Hephaestus. Percy easily killed the monster, and they had continued on with their journey, which had led them to the Hoover Dam in Nevada. Once they arrived, they were ambushed by Dr. Thorn and an army of monsters seeking to destroy them, which thanks to Percy they annihilated and finished off the lackey of Atlas, destroying the dam in the process.

Afterwards, they found Nereus, beat some info out of him and then found the Ophiotaurus, who apparently Percy had known the entire time before the quest and had even named it 'Bessie.' They then got the location of Artemis and Annabeth out of Nereus, and had sent Grover back to Camp Half-Blood via Percy ocean powers or something and had made their way here, and then killed Ladon and Zoe's sisters.

I stood in silence after the story had finished, annoyed I had missed so much. "Well, I guess you guys had a lot more fun time than I did." I said in a deadpan voice, prompting laughter from my group. "Alright, now somebody give me some ambrosia and nectar. I feel like I'm about to keel over and die right here."

Thalia promptly pulled a large chunk of ambrosia and a flask of nectar from her bag, handing it to me. I downed the nectar in an instant and munched up the ambrosia like it was a pack of crackers and instantly felt better. My aura returned to normal and my energy burst through the roof. "Hell yeah! That feels way better. Thanks, Thalia." Thalia nodded at me with a smile and she gathered everyone around, telling us that we would ascend the mountain and face off against Atlas to save Artemis and Annabeth in five minutes.

She told us to get everything situated and then we would leave. The group split up for a little bit, making sure everything was alright. I saw Nico head off into the corner of the garden alone, a solemn look on his face. I followed the son of Hades in concern, hoping he was alright. Once Nico stopped walking, I tapped him on the shoulder. Nico turned around, a scowl that had formed once I had tapped on his shoulder fading once he saw me. "Are you alright, Nico? You don't really seem to be yours-" Was all I could get out of my mouth before Nico's lips collided with mine quicker than most people could even react.

Very similar to when Taylor kissed me in front of everyone back in New Mexico and minutes ago, but unlike the son of Ares, Nico didn't pull back. If anything, Nico kept deepening the kiss. I kicked my brain in gear and threw my surprise out the window, quickly returning the kiss as well. My hands unconsciously shifted to Nico's waist as I felt one of the son of Hades' arms move up to my shoulder. Eventually, the kiss broke and I could feel my mind feeling like a butterfly took ketamine and starting masturbating inside my head. "Woah...uh, Nico...I-" Nico held up a hand, cutting me off. It seems like he wanted to something first.

"Zane, let me talk." I stopped speaking and shut my mouth, giving the son of Hades all the time he needed. "Okay, look. When you went missing and I couldn't feel your aura after we drove away from the town, I felt more scared than I have probably felt in my entire life. Your aura was so bright and brilliant during your fight with the grey men, then it felt larger than it's ever felt before outside your Thunder Form, then nothing. You just vanished off the face of the planet. I knew you weren't dead, as I can sense when things die, but I was so worried. I didn't know what had happened to you the past three days and I was on edge the entire time. And when you did finally show back up, Taylor just kissed you in front of everyone without any regard for-"

Nico stopped himself and shut his eyes, as if he was trying to hold the words in. "Nevermind, that doesn't matter. What does matter is that I'm willing to face this now. I love you, Zane." Nico's face burned like a hot iron was being pressed up against it, causing his pale skin to look even paler compared to his face. "You're the one who saved me from the Lotus Hotel, reunited me with my father and the memories of my past, and you've basically been one of the only people who's talked to me for the past year and a half I've been at camp."

Nico fell silent again, as if thinking what to say next. Eventually, he spoke again. "I know you told me you loved Taylor back in camp, but also that you loved me. Well, I love you, too. I don't know exactly what more to say here. I'm not going to beg for you to choose me or anything or to-"

I put a finger to Nico's lip, silencing him with a small smile on my face. Nico was just too cute for his own good. "Nico. I'm glad you finally came to terms with this and have decided to tell me. Truth be told, I have no idea in the whole world on what to do about this situation, but let's not worry about it right now. We have a Titan to kill and a Goddess to save. We'll figure all this out afterwards, alright?"

Nico nodded at my words, looking like he was uneasy about the future. Whether it was fighting Atlas or my future decision about him and Taylor, I didn't know, but I couldn't stand to see him nervous. I wrapped my arms around the son of Hades, putting my head atop of his. Nico wrapped his arms around my torso, squeezing hard enough to probably crush titanium. I'm glad I ate that ambrosia and nectar, otherwise that would have really hurt.

"Now come on, let's get this shit done with." I said as I reluctantly broke the hug. Nico wordlessly nodded at my words and the two of us made to join back up with the others in the middle of the garden. Once we were with the others, not much was said. Thalia asked us if everyone was ready, and with no objections, she led us up the mountain to what would probably be the most dangerous fight of my entire life. I felt my heart pounding and nervousness fill my core. It was time.

(000)

Bruh I'mso fucking sorry that this took so long. I got addicted to gaming on PS4 and fell in love with some femboy dude who lives in Japan who also plays the same game I do. I promise I won't ever let something like this happen again. I'm back baby.