Annabeth

I stared at the charred ground in shock, not believing what I just saw. I had to hold back a laugh of pure joy.

I met Poseidon's eyes and gave him a faint smile of reassurance, letting him know that what he just saw wasn't his imagination. The Gods and Demigods in the room had shock etched on their faces, aside from Hades. He held a smug grin, and I wondered if he cared more for Percy than we all thought.

He could always just be feeling prideful at his son's bravery, standing up to Zeus and saving Percy by Shadow Travelling him away.

"How dare they." Zeus muttered angrily. He turned to Hades, "Are they alive? Perseus and your son, Nico." He spat out the name bitterly, like he considered him a betrayer.

Hades remained silent for a moment before responding with an even tone, "No, the two have escaped unharmed. You've just angered them Zeus."

"Why should I care if they're angry, they're just demigods!" Zeus exclaimed. At this, Thalia lost her composure and snorted. All the gods turned to her and she just looked back at them, unfazed.

"Nico is one of the most powerful demigods alive. He's battled Giants and a Titan and fought in multiple wars, you underestimate him too much" Artemis seemed to whisper something to Thalia, which made her sit back down and relent from speaking further.

I took it as a cue to step in, I wasn't about to let them off the hook for trying to kill Percy. "Besides that," I began, seeing my mother's eyes widen slightly at hearing my voice speak up. I refused to look at her though, she had been in agreement with Zeus's plan, no doubt, and if she wanted to get rid of Percy, she was going to lose me.

"Percy IS the most powerful demigod to ever exist, I challenge anyone in this room to deny it." Zeus and Hera seemed to glance behind me at the rest of the Seven, specifically Jason, and Zeus also glanced at Thalia, but neither God spoke up. I turned in time to see Jason shake his head at their glances at him, "Don't look at me, he's way out of my weight division" he said reluctantly. The other demigods, including Thalia, nodded in agreement.

"Now you've tried to kill him because you fear he's going to turn against you. Which, let's face it, he's not going to do. In case you all forgot, his fatal flaw is loyalty. Turning on the Gods means turning on Poseidon and all of his Demigod friends, and every other God or Goddess he respects. He just wouldn't do it." I concluded, the Gods who likely voted against the idea looked down solemnly, but the others, my mother included, were stoic and stubbornly resolute in their decision. "Although, you've given him a reason to turn on some of you now, by betraying him. And as Hades said, you've made him angry, and you do not want to make Percy Angry."

Zeus scoffed in dismissal, "How bad could it be." He retorted, glaring at me.

I smirked and nodded towards the Lord of the Dead, "Why don't you ask Hades, I hear he angered Percy once before the Titan War"

All eyes turned to Hades, who shrugged lightly, "The boy may have wiped out half of my undead army by controlling the Styx and then destroyed the rest with his sword before knocking me down and threatening me" he must have realized how volatile this made Percy seem, and added in something else, "This coming after I tricked Nico into bringing him to me and throwing him in a Cell."

Poseidon's eyes were wide, "None of my children have ever had control over the Styx before"

This seemed to sober Zeus's arrogance slightly. I smirked, "He's also controlled the waters of the Cocytus for a short time while we were in it" I added, though mentioning it brought forth memories of being in Tartarus that were still fresh.

Poseidon seemed at a loss for words, but there was a very evident glint of pride in his eyes.

Zeus, while quieted, didn't seem fully convinced.

I just shrugged as the Gods kept their eyes on me, expecting me to continue. "If that's not enough for you, I suppose you could ask Akhlys"

Athena, in a rare occurrence, stuttered as she spoke, "You met Akhlys?"

I waved my hand nonchalantly, as if it were nothing. "Yep, she attacked us and Percy ended up beating her by using her own Poison against her."

I didn't bother waiting for things to settle in, "Anyways, I just felt you should know that. Also I'd hope you don't have any enemies rising to kill you soon, because you just tried to kill your best fighter, and I sure don't plan on fighting on your side anymore" I turned and began walking towards the exit. Behind me, I heard some shuffling and a couple surprised yells, turning in time to see Zeus fire his Master Bolt at me before Poseidon knocked it to the ground. I braced for the impact, but just like for Percy, I never felt the impact of the bolt.

Thalia, impulsively, had used her Huntress speed to get to me before her father fired at me, and opened her shield, Aegis, deflecting the blow into the ceiling. She turned to me, her expression hard. "Go, I'll make sure they don't bother you." She turned to the others and motioned for them to follow me. Jason gave her a concerned glance but she just smirked and walked back towards the Gods, putting her shield away.

We quickly left the throne room and headed to the elevator. Leo broke the silence, hopping around as we walked, "So how do we get to Percy? I doubt Nico would take him to the Camp, the Gods would be able to sense him there." He said, I glanced at him momentarily, surprised he'd said something that made sense, and wasn't a joke.

I shrugged, "We can't find him, he could be anywhere in the world"

Jason nodded, following my train of thought, "We just have to wait for him to get in touch with us, probably through Nico."

Reyna spoke up next, "We need to get to the Camp though, they all need to know the truth. We don't know if Jupiter or any of the others will try to fabricate a story to get them against Percy."

I grinned, "Yea, and Thalia ought to keep them busy for a little while, just long enough to get to camp."

Nico

Okay, so this was definitely not how I'd thought the return to Olympus would go. As soon as Zeus had started his big rant about Percy, I knew where it was going. By the time Percy seemed to catch on and looked around the room at everyone, I was already moving. Even then, I barely managed to get to him in time.

I didn't have time to register where I was shadow travelling to, my only thought was to get somewhere quiet and safe.

An empty hillside in the middle of Europe did the trick. Then I had to leave a dazed and confused Percy there so I could do something.

My dad had known exactly what I was planning the moment we looked at each other. He'd just nodded and smiled. I took that as enough proof to trust him for help.

Sadly, Hades was not in the Underworld to visit, he was on Olympus, and I got the feeling I wouldn't be welcomed there at the moment.

Instead, I showed up in the forests at Camp. I needed to talk to my dad, and the first thing that came to mind was the brazier in the dining pavilion. I quietly made my way there, there was no telling if the Campers had been lied to and would attack me if they saw me, or, worse, one of the Gods was here to see if Percy and I had come here.

Luckily, everyone seemed to be elsewhere, and the pavilion was empty. This plan would have gone down the drain pretty quickly if I'd shown up during Lunch or something, I thought dryly.

I grabbed one of the plates off the Hades table and made a meal appear, taking it to the brazier.

Dumping the whole plateful of food in for effect, I sent a prayer to my father, "Hades, I need to know which Gods I can trust."

I hadn't realized that I'd spoken it aloud until someone cleared their throat. I looked up with wide, shocked eyes, but felt an urge to relax as I saw it was Chiron. As nice as Chiron was, though, I couldn't afford to let my guard down, not yet.

"Nico, when did you get here?" he asked, perplexed. His eyebrows were furrowed, and he examined me warily, probably wondering why I was so tense.

"Not long ago" I said quickly, "Has anyone else gotten here? From Olympus?"

Chiron shook his head, "Not yet, why do you ask, my boy?"

I realized very quickly that Chiron was both completely in the dark on the current situation, and was just plain worried about the others, especially Percy.

I relaxed and sadness flickered through my features momentarily, not going unnoticed by the old Centaur. "Oh dear, has something happened?" he asked, his tail swishing nervously as he did so.

I let out a sigh, "Well, I had to grab Percy and get him out of the throne room very quickly, I don't know anything that happened after that, but that was about thirty minutes ago."

His face morphed into one of confusion, "Why did Percy have to leave the throne room?"

"Zeus decided it would be best to rid the Gods of a potential threat" I said, unwilling to say out loud that he tried to kill Percy.

Mixed emotions flashed on Chiron's face, sadness, confusion, relief, surprisingly, anger as well. It was not often that Chiron was ever angry.

"I see" he said, frowning, "What else can you tell me?" Nico shook his head slightly, "That's about all I know. I don't know what Gods can be trusted, aside from Poseidon and Hades. I don't know what has happened since I left Olympus, but I know the others are all alive, and probably on their way to camp, if they're smart"

Chiron composed himself, as if searching his mind for guidance to give to me. Once a teacher, always a teacher.

"I'd find it greatly surprising if you could not trust Lady Hestia, the last I heard, she has quite the soft spot for you and Percy. Besides that, it would make sense for your father to support you. Aside from the fact you're his son, you've sided with Percy and therefore Poseidon, two people Hades likes more than he likes Lord Zeus."

I shrugged, "Athena's actions made it clear that she was supporting the idea, Ares and Hera seemed pretty happy with themselves as well." I thought about adding in Dionysus as well, but held my tongue, as he didn't really seem swayed to either side at the meeting, and he was probably most likely to hear his name at camp and respond to it like a summons when he found out I said it. He was the Camp Director, after all.

Chiron seemed very troubled, but he finally broke the silence, "I shall wait until the others arrive to find out more, they will know what happened after you left, and you need to leave and go back to Percy."

He turned and slowly began back towards the big house before turning his head to make one final remark, "Remember to keep your heads down and identities secret wherever you go, the Gods could be anywhere. I don't want to lose either of you." I nodded, unsure of how to otherwise respond to him implying he cared about me. I shook my head, and with a small smile on my face. Finally, I heard my father's voice in my head as I stepped into the shadows, as he listed the names of the Gods who Percy could trust.

Percy

I'd been sitting idly on the hill for over half an hour, lost in my own thoughts. So I can't really be blamed if I jumped three feet backwards in surprise when Nico appeared out of thin air right in front of me.

"Gods Nico!" I shouted, he just chuckled at me.

I noticed that he had a backpack with him now, and he followed my gaze and seemed to be noticing it for the first time too. He quickly took it off and set the pack on the ground, unzipping it, he pulled out some clothes, including two hoodies, before finding a note. He read it quickly, a smile growing across his face as he did, and then handed me the note.

"Figured you two would need some supplies, keep the hoods up, they're enchanted to darken your face from view."

I set the note down, "Who's it from?" Nico was emptying the bag of its contents and laying them out in the grass to see what we had.

"I'd guess Hades, I prayed to him for advice, so maybe that let him know where I was. That or he can sense shadow travel and put it on me then"

I nodded quickly, scanning all the supplies, we had four hoodies, two for each of us, two smaller black ones for Nico, and then two green ones for me. Along with some jeans and tee shirts for the both of us.

Hades had also given us a few bottles of nectar, and a big bag of ambrosia squares. Aside from a regular first aid kit and some celestial bronze knives. He'd even thought to put in a pouch full of drachmas and around 200$ worth of mortal money, although we'd have to exchange it for Euros or something, if we were staying in Switzerland…

We split the money and drachmas evenly between us, since it only seemed fair.

"Good thing Hades loves you" I said, grinning down at the supplies.

Nico shrugged, putting it all back into the pack, except for one of each hoodie. "I'm pretty sure if you prayed to Poseidon you'd get the same thing, but that might be risky, they'll be watching Poseidon, knowing he's on your side."

I nodded in agreement, a second bag of supplies would be awesome, but there was no way to tell if they'd be able to find out where I was because my dad knew. Hades was probably under a lot less scrutiny, even though Nico was his son, he hadn't acted very concerned, besides, he wasn't known as someone who liked me.

We put on the hoodies and then flipped up the hoods to test them out. I turned to face Nico, seeing that his face was blotted out by the shadows, leaving only an outline. "Whoa" I exclaimed, grinning.

Nico nodded his head, probably in approval, "I wish I'd had one of these all my life. I could scare so many people!"

I shook my head at his antics, "That's creepy."

He ignored my comment and held out his arm, "Come on, we're gonna go to a nearby town and grab something to eat, I think we have a lot to talk about"

He had a point, besides, I was starving. I reached out and gripped his arm, plunging into darkness again.

We appeared in a quiet alleyway, I looked around at all the buildings, and it crossed my mind that Annabeth would kill to be in Europe, looking at all the architecture and the history of everything. I wondered how she'd reacted after Nico and I escaped, hoping she was alright.

I figured at the least, she and the others were alive, Nico would have said something otherwise. He wasn't the type of person to avoid things like that.

Nico signalled for me to follow him, and so I did, keeping our hoods raised. He turned and made his way down the street, stopping and entering one of the doors. I looked at the sign above it and saw a coffee cup logo.

I pushed through the door of the Café and sat at one of the booths with Nico. We looked at each other, somehow coming to a silent agreement to take off the hoods, despite the fact we couldn't even see each other's faces. I noticed that one of the employees had been looking at us warily, and her expression softened considerably once we took off the hoods, revealing two teenagers.

We must've looked pretty intimidating with the hoods on.

The same employee came over to us to take our order. She looked fairly young, probably early twenties, with curly red hair and blue eyes. She had a slight accent as she spoke, but I was just glad she spoke English in the first place.

"What would you two boys like?" she asked, smiling kindly at us. I returned the smile out of courtesy before ordering a coffee and a bagel. Nico followed suit, getting a Hot Chocolate (because he insisted Coffee tasted like dirt) and a couple of muffins.

He turned to me after the waitress left, "I can't believe that" he said.

"What?" I asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

"You serious Percy? All you did was smile at that waitress and her face turned bright red." He said, glancing back to the counter occasionally.

I shrugged, honestly, I didn't notice girls doing stuff like that around me, and I was kind of glad I didn't now, it was easier to avoid them flirting with me if I was just totally oblivious to their attempts to do it.

Annabeth was the only one I was going to ever see that way anyways, so it was better for them not to get any ideas.

"Not really my biggest concern right now" I muttered, glancing out the window nervously, expecting a God to show up and blow me up any minute.

The waitress returned with our orders and we dug in. The bagel I got wasn't much, but the menu here didn't really offer Cheeseburgers or Pizza, or any other real meals, for that matter.

The coffee, ironically, helped to calm my jitters and nerves, as Nico and I had a hushed discussion, making sure no one else could hear.

"So, what do you think you're gonna do?" he asked, staring intently at me. I looked down at my coffee cup, not really sure myself. "No clue, to be honest. I'm not going to go to war, because honestly, I'm only mad at Zeus. Hera hates all heroes, Athena has always hated me, Ares is just bitter and Dionysus could care less what happens, they're just letting things roll through because they don't care if I'm dead, Zeus is the one trying to kill me just because he feels threatened, or whatever his excuses are"

Nico nodded in understanding, "That reminds me, When I prayed to my dad, I asked him who we could trust. I don't know if that means they won't be looking for you if Zeus sends them, because they are bound to serve him as the King, but at least we know they might have their own agendas about it."

I smiled a little bit and nodded, "What names did he give?"

"Hermes, Apollo, Artemis, Aphrodite and Hestia" he replied, "Of course, your dad is a given, and my dad is obviously trying to help."

I bit my lip, "That leaves Ares, who hates me, Athena, who hates me, Zeus, who hates me, and then Hera, Dionysus and Demeter"

Nico nodded, "I think Hera could care less about you or any of the rest of us, we're pawns to her, besides, she'll support Zeus as his wife." That made sense, she wasn't exactly the nicest of Goddesses.

"Dionysus I don't really know about," I said, "He's helped me a lot before, but still hates heroes, but I think he just doesn't care what happens. I don't think I'd be going to him for aid even if your dad had said to trust him anyways, so that doesn't matter."

Nico smirked a little, "Yea, and Demeter is probably indifferent, I mean, the only things she's ever said about you is that you should eat more cereal, it's not like she has any real relations to you."

I decided to remain silent, sipping my coffee and looking out the window. There wasn't a whole lot I could do in my situation, keep in contact with camp, my friends, family. Avoid the Gods as much as possible. I could go around and look for demigods in Europe, help them out and train them if need be. Maybe send them to camp, if they had nowhere else to go. I wanted to still be helpful to camp and to demigods, we had each other's backs.

Besides, it was the right thing to do, and I had no better ideas, until we figured out a way to convince Zeus not to murder me.

Nico tapped my shoulder and I turned to face him, he nodded in the direction of the door and I turned slowly.

I let out a breath of relief when I saw who was standing outside the Café, looking in at the two of us intently. I gave her a smile and gestured for her to come in.

When she got to our booth and took a seat next to Nico, we both nodded to her, "Lady Hestia" we said in unision, before glaring at each other quickly in annoyance. Hestia smiled slightly. "Percy, Nico." She greeted warmly.

"I'm glad you came up with your plan, "She began slowly, smiling at me. Nico cut in, "What plan?" he asked, glancing at me.

"Percy has gotten the idea to just go around finding and helping demigods anonymously while in exile" Hestia told him, "It was his thoughts of doing so that invoked my presence and allowed me to find you. Such kind thoughts and decisions to help others warm the hearth, so naturally I can sense them."

I smiled, "There's nothing else that I really can do, I can't go back to either Camp, Zeus would find me there. I can travel though, either with Nico or Mrs. O'Leary or Blackjack, even on foot, I guess" shrugging, I etched out my plan, both to myself and to Nico and the Goddess in front of me, "I'd look for signs of demigods near schools and parks and stuff, if there are any monsters around, they'll find me and hopefully help me find people. I just have to make sure I don't get in trouble with mortals or caught by the Gods… or at least, the ones helping Zeus"

Hestia smiled at that, "Artemis is the most likely to find you, she's a born huntress and tracker, conveniently though, she's confident that you're still in the Americas, and has begun searching there with the Hunters. The other gods being sent out the search are looking there as well. The only real threat to you who has been sent out to search is Ares. The others are all rather fond of you"

"Ares is the only one searching for him that is sided with Zeus?" Nico asked in disbelief. Hestia nodded, "Naturally, he has Athena on Olympus trying to determine your next moves. Hera remains on Olympus of her own accord, and Dionysus, while willing to kill you if he found you, could really care less if you survived instead. Either way, he was sent back to Camp Half Blood"

I rubbed the back of my neck, "If you don't mind my asking Lady Hestia, why are you helping us so much?"

She just smiled warmly at us once again, releasing all the tension and nerves from my body. I noticed Nico visibly relax as well. "For the same reason that the majority of the Olympians have no wish to see you die. You're our greatest Hero, Percy. And your friend Nico here, is a powerful demigod in his own right, who has only ever fought to save Olympus, besides being the Pride of his father, Hades." A ghost of a smile flickered on Nico's face.

"The main differences between the others and I, is that I do not take orders from Zeus. None of his siblings do. Hera simply follows because she is his wife. Poseidon is only restrained by the fact that Zeus is keeping watch of him to try and get to you. Hades does as he wishes, as made apparent by the supplies he gave you." Nico and I grinned, looking down at our hoodies.

A thought came to my mind, "Um, Lady Hestia – " She gave me a small smile and put a hand on my shoulder, "I know what you will ask, Percy, I can grant your request and make sure aren't detected by the other Gods" I gave her a thankful smile, Nico looked slightly confused, but Hestia didn't seem to take notice, "Now, let's get going. I've already made sure your meal was paid for."

We flashed out of the café and appeared in a completely different environment. I smiled broadly, looking at Nico for a moment to see the recognition dawn on his face, as he realized what I'd asked Hestia to do.

I took a deep breath, inhaling the smell.

The smell of home.