Chapter 16:

The dolphins got me close enough to the shore so I could just swim the rest of the way. I thanked them and went on my way.

The beach was cleared so nobody was freaked out when I walked out of the water completely dry. I looked up and down the shore and saw nothing. When I looked towards the city I saw a column of flames shoot up over the dunes. 'Well, that's probably where I have to head,' I thought.

I easily got over the dunes and scanned the part of the city below me. Almost all of the buildings were what looked like worn down factories. Off in the distance, maybe five or six blocks away, the column of fire shoot up over the roofs of the buildings. I rushed down alleys and across deserted streets to reach whatever challenge was ahead of me.

'Please don't have anything to do with Eros,' I pleaded.

Finally, I reached a corner of a building and here noise around the right side of the building.

"Come on Festus!" I heard someone shout, "I was supposed to be back with the seven like fifteen years ago!" I peaked my head around the corner and saw a small man kneeling in front of a giant bronze dragon. A woman in a white dress stood off to the side. She seemed impatient but didn't say anything.

The dragon blew another column of fire into the air. I felt the heat from where I was standing. 'Gods, how can he stand that heat?' I asked myself.

"How much longer do you think this will take, Leo?" the girl spoke up.

"I don't know, maybe if someone would cooperate with me we would've been there fifteen years ago!" the man spoke coldly to the dragon. The dragon didn't seem to like the way the man was talking to him so he blew a blast of fire right at him. I gasped and allowed my sword to appear, and I stepped out of my hiding spot.

The girl jumped when she saw me not when the guy got hit by the fire.

"Leo," she squeaked. When the fire died down I saw the man still kneeling, unscathed. He looked at the girl and saw she was pointing at me.

"Great," Leo muttered, "What do you need?" I eyed the group. 'One giant dragon, a girl dressed in a white cotton dress that could easily conceal a dagger, and a man who is immune to fire. Perfect!' I thought.

"Λειτουργεί," I said and my armor appeared. Leo took one glance at the green trident that lit up on the front and smiled.

"Great to meet you! I'm sure Percy has told you a lot about me. I mean I'm guessing you're a Greek demigod because the Romans don't really enjoy Neptune's… company." Leo told me. He sounded like he was joking but I didn't feel comfortable enough to retract my defenses.

"Erm, who are you?" I asked Leo.

"Wow, I vanish for fifteen years and nobody remembers me. Why I'm just the greatest hero to ever live!" Leo said sounding super proud of himself. The girl broke into a fit of laughter.

"You? You're the greatest hero to ever live? Now that's the funniest thing I have ever heard!" she managed to get out. Leo looked at her you could see a bit of hurt in his eyes but then some sort of realization flickered across his face.

"Yeah, I'm the greatest hero to ever live. I mean I was the first and only person to free you from your prison." that shut the girl up, but she still had a smile on her face. "Anyway, I never caught your name." Both of them looked at me.

"Mya, Mya Gethern, daughter of Poseidon," I told them confidently.

"I knew it!" Leo shouted.

"What's up with the dragon?" I asked Leo ignoring his comment.

"War with Gaea, and then I just never had time to repair him. Every now and then we need to stop and give him some time to rest," Leo admitted.

"May I?" I asked.

"Sure, but it's not my fault if you get burnt to a crisp," Leo raised his hands up and took a step back from the dragon. I retracted my defenses to make sure the dragon didn't feel threatened.

I stuck out my hand and said in a soft voice, "Hey buddy," the dragon creaked like it was trying to talk to me, so I took it as he was telling me that I could look at his control panel not that he was going to blast me into bits. I opened up the control panel behind it's head and took a look.

Now I know nothing about machines but maybe if I fixed this dragon I could get a free ride to New Rome. I saw a ton of wires that were all tangled together. 'Red…. Blue…. Green…. Yellow?' I thought. I had no idea what I was doing. 'Just don't break it. Gods if I break it Leo will probably break me.' I told myself. Finally, I decided to switch a red and blue wire around and see what happened. Sparks flew and the dragon perked up.

"What did you do?" Leo shouted in surprise.

"Ummm," I responded.

"How did you fix him?" Leo came over to look at the placement of the wires. "Of course, why didn't I think of that? Mya, you are a genius!"

"Erm, thank you?" I asked.

"How can I help you? You fixed my best friend is there anything I can do for you? Anything at all?" Leo asked me.

"Actually there is something you can do for me," I told him, "I-"

"No, we need a ride to New Rome," a voice came from above me. I looked up and saw Dylan lowering himself to the ground. I saw a black smug circling above us and guessed it was Liam.

"How did you even get here? Or figure out where I was?" I asked Dylan.

"I received an apology gift from a certain god," Dylan told me and then stuck out his foot for me to look at. At first, they looked like normal shoes, but when Dylan snapped his fingers wings sprouted out from the sides.

"It would stink if you started snapping to a song and just started hovering," Leo shouted from his spot next to the girl. Dylan turned around and just looked at him. "Hey, I'm just saying!" Leo said throwing his hands up in protest.

"For your second question, it's not difficult to spot a bronze dragon from in the sky," Dylan told me. I nodded telling him that I understood.

I opened up my arms for a hug and he accepted. "Thank you for coming back," I whispered softly.

"Of cou-" he was interrupted by me sliding my feet behind his legs and knocking him to the ground.

I unsheathed Annabeth's dagger from his waist and held it close to his throat, and then leaned in close to tell him, "If you ever do something that stupid again I swear I will slice your throat open!"

Dylan laughed, "Ok, no more irrational decision making," he promised while holding his hands up in surrender. I heard something big land near the dragon and then I heard soft footsteps hit the ground.

"Don't think you're off the hook either, Liam. You're in about as much trouble as this kid," I said pointing the dagger at Dylan.

"Trust me, Mya, I'm terrified of you," Liam said seriously. I nodded and looked at the girl and Leo.

"I suppose I won't be needing you for a ride to New Rome," I told them while gesturing at the pegasus and Dylan's winged shoes. "But thank you for offering me a favor for helping you out."

"Yeah, but trust me I still owe you big time," Leo told me. "Come on Calypso and Festus we have fifteen years of life to get caught up on!" In a few minutes, they were off heading toward the direction of New York.

"How do you think everyone will react when they see a person that is supposed to be dead?" Liam asked us.

"What do you mean?" Dylan and I looked at him.

"Leo Valdez, supposedly died in the war with Gaea, but we just met him and he did not look dead to me," Liam said with a shrug. "Come on we have to get to New Rome." He motioned for me to get on the pegasus with him.

I looked at Dylan to see if he had an answer but he was looking at the last place in the sky where we had seen Leo.

"We can't fly too high. That's Zeus' domain and I have a feeling that he doesn't like me very much," I told both of the boys. Dylan was snapped out of his trance and nodded. And in a few minutes, we were situated and off in the opposite direction of where Leo went.

After a few hours, I became tired again and drifted asleep leaning on Liam's back.

…

"Did you get the boy on our side?" a dark powerful voice asked. I tried to look around but I was blinded.

"Yes, father," another voice responded, but this voice sounded frail and weak against the old and more powerful voice.

"How is Eros doing? Was his power able to drag in the girl?" I heard creaking and a low rumble almost like we were in a cavern.

"Yes, and he watched her kill that empusa at the Battery," the frail voice said.

"She's powerful. Maybe more powerful than her brother," My blood turned to stone. They were keeping tabs on me, but how? Eros was at both places and could've reported back to the voices but I thought he would continue to follow. "This war should be fun! I will enjoy killing both of the sea spawn!"

"Do you believe we will win?"

"Of course boy, all of the pieces are stacked in our favor, and to make things better the gods are fighting over who could possibly be the god mentioned in the prophecy."

My dream shifted and I could see again. I was again in the Olympian throne room. Unlike the last time I had seen the console this time they were standing up shouting at each other. Every god was fighting with another. The biggest fight seemed to be going on between Zeus and Poseidon. As I looked at the two powerful gods I noticed that Zeus kept backing up and getting closer to his throne. I looked at the seat of his throne and noticed his master bolt laying there untouched. I wanted to scream at my father and tell him what was going to happen. Finally, Zeus was close enough to his throne to grab his bolt he waited a moment and allowed Poseidon to keep shouting at him before he made his strike.

There was a bright flash and a loud crash. All of the gods went silent and looked at where the noise came from. Standing in front of Zeus's throne were two gods fuming with their weapons crossed. My father's trident was pure gold and was much larger than Zeus's master bolt. The weapons hummed with power and sparked while they were held together for so long.

"This is unwise," Athena told the rest of the gods, "We're letting ourselves get separated in a time so close to a large war."

"Oh, now it's unwise to be fighting with each other because it sure didn't seem that way when you had your spear pointed at my chest a few moments ago," a god in a red leather jacket snarled at the goddess.

"Shut it, Ares!" Apollo shouted at the god.

The fighting broke out again and the king of the gods did nothing to stop anything. Instead, he continued glaring at my father.

My dream shifted once again, and I was back to being blind.

"This is good father," the frail voice said, "We have them right where we want them!"

"Yes, and there is nothing that sea spawn can do!" the powerful voice said with a laugh.

…

I jolted awake and almost caused both Liam and me to fall off the winged horse.

"Woah! What's up?" Liam asked. I looked around and saw Dylan flying a little ways behind us.

"Nothing it was just…" I thought about the dream I had just seen. The gods were fighting and something evil was using it to their advantage. "It's nothing." Liam raised an eyebrow but said nothing more about that topic.

"You know what person in a Greek story you remind me of Mya?" I shrugged and allowed him to go on. "Icarus," he said calmly while looking out in front of us.

"Why is that?" I questioned. 'What a weird person to be compared to.' I thought to myself, 'Icarus died painfully.'

"Well, I never wanted to say anything before but as you know Icarus died because he flew too close to the sun," I nodded and Liam continued on. "Well I mean both you and him look out to the future but it tells you nothing. With Icarus, he couldn't predict that he was going to die unless a god told him." Liam turned his head to look at me. I felt uneasy trying to understand what he was saying.

"What is that supposed to mean?" I asked coldly.

"Calm down and listen unlike Icarus, Mya. Take another breath! Your hands protect the flames from the wild winds around you!" Liam laughed. I felt uncomfortable being so close to him now. "I had a dream. I was told your choice is coming soon, Mya. Don't fly towards an early grave. I'm not sure what Dylan would do without you."

I shivered. I didn't like how he changed so quickly. He had a hidden meaning behind his words. He had to have!

"Guys! Look!" Dylan shouted. He pointed ahead of us and that's when I saw them. Oakland Hills were right in front of us.

"There it is. Camp Jupiter, we're here," I said quietly looking at Liam cautiously.

Fairyn~ Thank you for your review and for not being mad at me. ;)

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