Hey everyone,

The poll and all commenting votes (and PMs) have been tallied up and voted for. Then also adding in my personal input. Drum roll please! *Drums roll* *Lights dim* *Tense atmosphere from the readers*

The winner is... I'M NOT GOING TO TELL YOU! Yes, I'm being a jerk and not telling you what the answer is going to be. Personally, don't dwell on pairings too much. I've read some comments before on when I was feeling like less people were reviewing my story and how I wanted just a tad bit more attention. They said add a pairing. Most people like pairings. Well, to be honest, they aren't necessary. But I guess I might as well add a little bit of romance in mine. Just saying, Zoe and Percy will have a few moments, but they are NOT going to end up together in the long run. Sorry for those who wished for that. Those who voted for the one where Percy dates one of the modern girls... sorry but that is just unrealistic so that idea is out of the running. Those who want Artemis and Percy to be together, sorry, that is also unrealistic. Now, I've revealed a lot, but I'm pretty sure you guys should be able to figure out where I'm going with this.

Anyways, I'm going to take the poll down and what will happen will have to be a mystery. Plots and twists and turns will occur, I assure you of that. Now, this story still has a few chapters to go, so don't go away just yet.

With best regards,
SharkAttack719

Chapter 17

One Giant Nail

"This still isn't going well," Zoë sulked. "We've been on the ocean for days now. And because I betrayed my family, they're bound to attack me."

Just then, water spouted from the ocean and splashed her in the face.

"She-devils!" she shouted, her eyes ablaze.

Percy put a hand on her shoulder. "Calm down, Zoë. They're just playing with you. They can hear you so that is why they sprayed you. Soothe yourself and relax."

Zoë huffed angrily and stomped on his foot hard. Then she crossed her arms and glared at him.

Percy's face contorted in pain. "You really have a strong stomp. For the gods' sake."

"It's what you deserve," she said bluntly, indifferent to his throbbing pain.

"Whatever you say, Lady Zoë." Percy bowed before receiving a rough push. "Hey! What was that for?"

"For mocking me."

"I wasn't mocking you!"

"Then why did you bow?"

"Uh... because I was trying to poke fun at you?"

She rolled her eyes. "Boys."

"Can you stop judging me like I'm the worst being on earth?" Percy exclaimed.

"What if you are?" Zoë asked.

"I am not!" he replied hotly. "Just because I contradict you makes you hate me?"

"I never said I hated you," she sighed. "You're just annoying sometimes. You cannot just be laid back all the time like you are. Relying on instinct isn't good for you?"

"Since when did you become a psychologist?"

She exhaled slowly, then spoke to him as if he were a little baby. "I talk to Atalanta. I learn things from her. I learn that skill is necessary in things."

"I do have skill in some things!"

"But do you have the wits to use it properly?"

He gave her a murderous look. "Okay, before it was all fun and games, but you just crossed the line. Just because I appear dense at times, I'm not stupid. Why can't people tell that I am smart?"

"Because of the way you portray yourself," Zoë said wisely. "The way you act, what you say, everything that has to do with how you express yourself publicly. If you seem like a dense nut ball, people will think you're a dense nut ball."

"How the Hades do you even—Theseus?"

Zoë nodded. "Hanging around him... it's inevitable that you pick up some of his habits. It can be quite annoying at times."

"You don't say."

"If you would stop having that lazy look on your face all the time, and if you would quit acting as if you're clueless to everything going on around you, maybe people wouldn't think you're dumb," she said a-matter-of-factly.

"I don't have a lazy look," Percy said offended. "It's just that I'm tired from the trip. And even I do have that kind of look, how would you know I have it all the time." He scrunched his eyebrows. "We do sleep in the same room... but you don't watch me in my sleep, do you?"

"Of course not!" Her face turned a slight pink.

He raised an eyebrow, and she shoved him playfully. Percy laughed and looked at the embarrassed features of the daughter of Atlas. This wasn't the first time, but it was the first time in a few weeks that he really relished her beauty. Despite the hardened black eyes, they still held another kinder side to her. Her skin wasn't that fair; she was tanned, a shade even darker than himself. He almost felt it a pity that she would become the first Hunter of Artemis. At least they would be enough of friends to talk occasionally... hopefully.

"I'm just messing with you, Zoë," Percy said grinning. "Either way, I want to help you with something."

"What?"

"I have a feeling that you may be needing to learn how to fight, like in combat. To become something like Atalanta so that you can protect yourself in the future."

"You're going to teach me combat?"

"Kind of." Percy gave her a lopsided grin. He jogged away toward the lower decks and called, "I'll be right back. Just stay there and hang on."

He went below deck and into the weapons and armor room. He scoured the corner of the room, grabbing a spare bow and a quiver full of arrows. Then, he grabbed a bronze knife and sheathed it in a belt.

Percy turned around and ran back upstairs carrying all of the equipment. He met up with Zoë, who was waiting patiently on the top deck for him to come back. When he turned up with the bow and quiver, she looked a little surprised.

"You're going to teach me ranged combat? How?"

Percy smiled and said, "Remember what I told you after we left Libya? I'm a son of Poseidon." He reached his hand out toward the ocean and formed a sort of target in which Zoë could shoot at with the bow and arrow. "It's a start."

She looked at him incredulously. "Why bother to train me with this kind of combat? You said start a new life. I don't think Greek cities are looking for female soldiers. I thought you would have meant self-defense in close combat."

He took off the belt and tied it around Zoë's waist. "I'll also help you with this."

Zoë looked utterly shocked. "Why? You still haven't told me why."

Percy sat them down on the platform at the bow. "You want me to confide in my plans for you?"

"You have plans for me? You don't control my life."

"But I did swear to you that I would try my best to give you a family that will care about you forever," he pointed out. "I have this idea... a group of people you will care about for eternity, yet will not ever feel like leaving. What happened between you and Heracles will never happen again."

She looked at him curiously.

"The Hunters of Artemis," he said. Before she could ask him a single question, he continued, "A group of teenage girls who have had their hearts broken and shattered that serve Artemis not as priestesses but hunters. As she is the goddess of the hunt, she will be the leader of the group. You and your companions, the Hunters, will travel across the world to rid it of its worst beasts. It will be dangerous, but as girls come into the group, you will gain sisters that will never go against you for all of eternity."

"All of eternity?"

Percy nodded. "The Hunters will be immortal, though they can die in combat. The Hunters cannot be a huge group, just a small little group. You will be composed of any previously mortal creatures: humans, nymphs, demigods and more. You can be a part of the group because you had your immortality taken away."

"That sounds great," Zoë smiled. Then her face fell a little. "What do you mean nothing like what Heracles did will happen?"

"Artemis is a maiden goddess, correct?" Percy asked. "The girls have to swear an oath that they will never have romantic feelings toward any man or boy for the rest of eternity. If they break that oath, they will be severely punished according to how severe the feelings are. That's the one downside for any regular girl. But the idea is to get girls who have been torn apart by men. Like you and Heracles."

Zoë looked a hesitant now. "But that means... what if I do fall for another boy? Should I take that risk?".

"Think of every single thing that Heracles has done to you," he said, sparking her imagination. He saw her wince a lot. Then, he spoke the cold, hard truth. "He is arrogant, much like his father, like how I have a slightly inflated ego, like my father. But, he is not the worst you will face. Do not push your hatred past the limits, but if you want to be safe, you have to sacrifice some things."

She regarded him with unreadable eyes for a long time, a time that seemed to lengthen as it continued to pass.

Then, she grabbed the bow, slung the quiver over her shoulder, pulled an arrow out, nocked it (though with a small fumble), and pointed the bow out to sea.

She gave him a quick nod. "Whenever you're ready."

"Well, I must say you're doing a great job with Zoë," Atalanta complimented. "She turning out to be pretty skilled with a bow and arrow. Of course, she isn't up to your level yet, but she'll get there."

Percy beamed. "I think the swaying of the boat helps her improve faster. Then, when I move the target, both objects are moving that way. She will be used to having her aim adjusted more often. It may help her when learning to shoot while moving."

Atalanta nodded and watched the daughter of Atlas.

Zoë, at that moment, was pretending to fight someone with her knife. Percy hadn't really taught her much of that, but he had gotten Atalanta's help. She was far better with her knives than he was. He was more of a swordsman. Percy just hoped he was as good with a spear even though he had never tried.

"All right, take a break, Percy," Atalanta said, patting him on the back. "I'll take over for close combat, okay?"

"Yeah." Percy gave Zoë a smile and a nod before heading off for the dining room. He was fairly hungry and they'd stopped at the eastern end of Ausonia to go and catch some fish and hunt some animals. It was a successful journey and they now had food for a few days. That would be all they needed to get back home.

At the moment, they were sailing somewhere to the south of Greece, though not too close to the coast.

He grabbed some deer meat and lit a fire in the sheltered stone cooker. It was quite an ingenious machine. Normally, in the open, it would be okay to cook over a fire, just any old fire; however, in doors, especially in a wooden ship, it would be dangerous to do that. Instead, there was this stone block with a hole cut into it large enough to fit a meal for three inside. Then, after putting the meat on a stick that stuck through two specially placed holes poked into the sides of the stone box, the fire could be lighted while the stick controlled where the meat went over the fire. Most of the Argonauts were okay with the smoke and didn't think that it was a problem.

It didn't take too long to cook the meat, and he quite enjoyed it. It wasn't the fact that he enjoyed killing the animal, but more of the fact that that was the only meat they could find on Ausonia... at least in that area. They didn't want to wander too far into the mysterious lands.

In the middle of his meal, Theseus appeared down in the kitchen.

"Percy, hey!" He took a seat next to him. "You feeling less alone now?"

"Listen, Theseus." Percy gulped down his food. "I'm sorry about—"

"Ah, there's nothing to be sorry about, Percy," he said. "Everyone has these rough patches throughout their life. Think about how lonely Jason must have been throughout his years training with Chiron."

"At least he went out into the world," Percy sulked. "I didn't have that chance."

"But you're here now, aren't you?" Theseus exhaled loudly. "Not many young boys get the chance to travel the world on a heroic and dangerous quest. You have had the opportunity of a lifetime. And don't tell me anything that counters that. No cowardly, scared boy would become a friendly acquaintance with men twice his age or more. I still remember when someone camp to visit Chiron, which was Jason's mother if you forgot, you hastily ran away to the tents. You wouldn't do that now."

Percy ate more of his deer.

"Cheer up, Percy," Theseus said patting him on the back. "We're almost home. Then you'll get to really enjoy the world. You're at that stage when you are turning into a young man, just a few more years to go."

"This trip, Theseus, it has been two years and three-quarters of a year. Can you believe that it is finally coming to a close?"

"To be honest, I expected it to end two years ago," he laughed. "But of course, the incident in Lemnos, and with Phineas and the Harpies, plus the gale that drove us north, and the gale that drove us south... they all add up to the extra time. It's been forever since we last saw Greece. I believe a bit of nostalgia is in order."

Percy snorted. "Do whatever you want. I already have my future planned out."

"That's more like it," Theseus grinned. "What are you going to do?"

"First off, I need to get onto Olympus somehow, so I guess I'll be hunting dangerous monsters to sacrifice to the gods," Percy explained. "I'm going to try and give Artemis the idea of creating a group of hunters that will follow her and her only, and Zoë will be the first Hunter of Artemis. Then after she is delivered and happy, I am going to find out about my past. Who did my mother descend from? Am I ancient royalty?"

"That would be interesting to find out," Theseus agreed. "Well, good luck to you on your adventures."

"And you as well," Percy smiled. "Have fun claiming your rightful spot as heir to the Athenian throne."

"Thanks."

Percy cleaned up his area and went to his room. He grabbed his scroll of papyrus and began writing into it.

"Day 1004

Another day at sea. The Argonauts are taking the voyage cautiously, wondering if there are any more threats. Theseus and Jason are convinced we are finally heading home. So are Atalanta, Periclymenus, the Boreads, the Dioscuri, Zoë and myself. It feels nice to be able to reach home again. There isn't much to report for today, and I don't want to waste space; however, Zoë is improving on her bow and arrow skills. She seems like a natural. That's perfect for what I want her to become. I know it sounds like I'm trying to control her life, but honestly, it's hard for me too. She is a beautiful young girl, and I would love to promise to marry her, but she would be happier as a Hunter. Somehow, I know it. Either way, it is time to end this journal. Goodbye."

He smiled at what he wrote before rolling up the scroll and putting away his kalamos. He tucked them away before lying down on the floor to take a quick nap.

His dream was quite different from the usual dreams he had.

He was back at his mother's farm, watching as his mother walked backwards across the field. Then his eyebrows knit in confusion. As his mother was walking backwards, freshly harvested vegetables that were in her wheelbarrow were picked up and placed back down in the ground. He watched as his mother continuously did that, her movements steadily increasing in speed.

That's when he realized time was going backwards.

His mother was moving very quickly now, and before he knew what was happening, he saw when his mother was pregnant. Time quickly backtracked and his mother turned into a younger woman. Percy saw his father meet his mother for the first time at a sandy beach.

Quickly, his mother was just a young girl now, and an older man and older woman appeared on the property. They treated Percy's mother with contempt and Percy had to resist the urge to go and punch them. Either way, it wouldn't have worked considering time was moving faster than he could move.

Then, when his mother was just a tiny little girl, a different pair of adults appeared. These had to have been his mother's parents, his grandparents.

Before he knew it, he began watching a long, flickering show of backwards movements, time gradually passing in the real world, time rushing by like a galloping horse in the dream. He saw his grandmother's childhood, then his great-grandmother's, then his great-great-grandfather's. He saw time backtrack many generations until it came to a very interesting one.

There was a lone man on the farm. He looked poor, which made Percy kind of sad. It seemed to be that Percy wasn't from royalty. He heard a strange buzzing in his ear and he realized that he could hear now.

The farm looked different, smaller than what he'd seen with his mother's. It seemed as though this was a long time ago. Well, he reckoned it was. It had been many generations since his mother was alive.

Percy walked forward and through the door, just like he could walk through rock walls in other dreams of his.

The man was grumbling in the corner of his room, shuffling with papyrus papers. "They think I'm some sort of lunatic. Making the farms bigger and put together would make farming more efficient. Crazy old bugger. I've been to Egypt. No wonder they're so much further advanced than we are. Stupid Egyptian magicians and animal-headed gods."

A knock was heard on the door.

"Bet it's the stupid king ready to send me packing," Percy's ancestor grumbled. The man went to the door and opened it. Percy couldn't see who the hooded figure was except for the curled black hair sticking out of the hood, but it seemed as though the man recognized her.

"Thee? What are you doing here? I haven't seen you in months!"

The woman kissed the bundle of robes in her arms. Percy realized that it was a baby. Then he felt something prodding at his stomach. He looked around for another ghost of some sort, but there was no one around besides the other two.

"This baby is yours," the woman said.

The man's jaw dropped. "But we never—"

"We need to talk. May I come in to the kitchen?"

Still baffled, he numbly let her in. Percy made a move to follow them, but something hit his leg really hard.

"Ow!" he cried out in pain. "What the Hades?"

Then his eyes snapped open and he saw Zoë standing above him with an agitated face on. "Finally you wake up," she grumbled. "You've been sleeping for hours now. I've been getting bored. Want to talk?"

Percy sat up and rubbed his eyes. That dream... it could have revealed who that woman was. Evidently, it had to have been a mistake, seeing as the man admitted he had never slept with her. Or maybe...

"Hours? How many hours?" he asked, breaking himself out of his own thoughts.

"It's the next day at noon," she said. "That's how long you've been passed out."

"Next day at noon," he repeated groggily.

"Yeah, come on out."

Zoë led him out onto the top deck. She brought him to the platform at the bow that he so often looked over. She pointed out in the distance and said, "Look. There's land in that direction. I think we're arriving in Greece. Finally!"

Percy smiled, though he yawned. He sniffed a little before leaning against the wooden gunwales. "Looks like Greece. It's all coming to an end. You wouldn't know the full extent of the adventure, but at least you spent a little bit of that time with us."

"It will be an even more eventful time when I become a Hunter of Artemis," Zoë said, her voice teeming with excitement. "Do you really think you could have Artemis create that group?"

"As long as it helps girls like you, I am sure she will be willing to help."

They stood there watching as the land became clearer in the morning daylight. Percy could now see the shoreline of the land that they were approaching. He had a sense that they were in the right place. This was home territory, Hellas.

"Have you ever been to Greece, Zoë?" Percy asked.

She shook her head. "I have never been. As one of the Hesperides, I have always been restrained to my spot in the Garden. I have lived there for my entire life, never leaving and always doing my duty. As the nymphs of the sunset, we would only appear at that time of day. The rest of the time, we could only be summoned by our father, Atlas. I enjoyed my duty much, played with Ladon even though he was meant to stop us from taking the golden apples. If we were caught leaving the Garden..." She shuddered. "That is too horrible to even think about."

"So you've never seen anything outside of the Garden of the Hesperides?" Percy asked astonished.

"No."

"Wow, that's sad."

"Not everyone is free to go where they please and do what they want," Zoë said.

"That sure is—wait, what is that?"

In the distance, on the land that they were approaching, a giant man (who was like twenty feet tall) stepped into view. Percy could see that the sun gleamed off of the man as if he was made of metal or something. He saw as the man put a hand over his eyes to peer out at them. Percy knit his eyebrows as he had never seen such a man before. Then again, he hadn't gone to that many places in his childhood.

"You tell me," Zoë said, fear evident in her voice. "You're the one that lives here."

As the Argo drew closer, Jason, Medea, Theseus, Atalanta and Periclymenus came to see what the commotion was all about. The rowing became slower, the rowers standing up in their seats to see what had happened.

"What is that thing?" Jason asked.

"I don't know," Theseus said. "I've never seen that before."

"Wait," Periclymenus said. "Hold on. Is that giant man made out of metal?"

Medea squinted hard to look at it. "Bronze. It looks like bronze to me."

"I think this might be Crete," Periclymenus told Jason. "There was this story that I heard back in my hometown, Pylos. In Crete, recently, Europa was sent gifts from Zeus. One of them was a giant bronze man by the name of Talos."

As Periclymenus continued telling the story, something caught Percy's eye. The giant man, supposedly Talos, bent down to pick something up. Then, the man swung his arm forward, as if throwing something. Percy looked up into the sky and saw something sailing towards the ship. At first, he thought it was something small, but as it got closer, he realized it was a giant boulder.

He raised his hands and sent a giant blast of water at the rock, effectively stopping it in midair and making it drop into the ocean. When the giant man bent down to pick up another rock, Percy sent the ship hurtling to the side.

"Talos was meant to protect her!" Periclymenus shouted as the deck of the Argo burst into a major panic.

Zoë began to run downstairs for a bow, but Atalanta grabbed her arm and shook her head. "Arrows will do no good against a monster made of metal. Plus, the automaton's range is far greater than ours with a bow. He could crush us instantly."

"Medea!" Periclymenus shouted. "He has a weakness, but you need to execute it!"

Jason stared at him. "What are you talking about?"

A rock sailed overhead and nearly destroyed the sail.

"A weakness?" Medea asked. "What kind of weakness, and why do you need me to execute it?"

Percy focused on trying to steer the ship away from safety, but he was also intrigued about what the bronze man's weakness was. He figured it would be good to know, just because.

"He has only one vein, one that travels from his neck to his ankle, that is bound shut by a rusty nail," he said. "It was a stupid design, or a design that was meant for Talos to be destroyed, but if you can get that rusty nail loose, Talos will die. The reason you need to do it is because you're the only one here who knows how to use sorcery."

After a moment of hesitation, she agreed. "All right, I'll do it. I just need a few things. Get the boat closer to Talos. I need to be closer to be able to cast a better spell."

"We won't be able to get closer without being destroyed, though," Atalanta said worryingly. "There is no possible way for us to get closer without the rocks crushing us."

Then her eyes turned to Percy.

"Can you destroy the rocks with your water powers?" she asked.

"It's possible," he grunted.

"Do it. We need anything that will distract the monster."

"Okay, I got it."

Percy turned the ship toward the metal man and sent the ship sprinting forward, tearing through the water like on a racing chariot. Then he stepped up to the platform at the bow and watched as a large rock was sent flying at the Argo. Percy closed his eyes and raised both of his hands. Giant hands emerged out of the water and followed his exact movements.

Just as the rock got within range of Percy's water hands, Percy snatched the air in front of him. His water hands grabbed the boulder and dropped it into the sea. He hoped his father didn't mind rocks sinking down into his waters.

"A little closer!" Jason told the Argonauts.

More rocks were sent hurtling, this time smaller but faster ones. Percy essentially had to smack the rocks out of the air instead of snatching them. It was a hard task, keeping the giant hands moving a harder task than it sounded. He wasn't tired, but he could feel his energy dipping a little. He felt as though he could only manage doing this for another hour or so before being too tired to do anything.

Then, from behind him, he heard Medea muttering some sort of incantation. He watched as demon spirits rose out of the ground near Talos and began to attack him.

"What is that?" Theseus asked in awe.

"Keres," Jason muttered. "Female demon-spirits."

A dark, eerie aura began enveloping the Argo, creepy and reverberant laughs piercing the daylight sky. The sun seemed to dim just a shade.

The Argonauts stopped whatever they were doing to watch as Talos stopped attacking them and began swatting at the ghostly demons as if they were pesky insects or something like that. He stomped and trampled over trees and the grasslands, no doubt killing some animals living in that area.

"Daimones treilani," Medea said in a Greek-like tongue. "Treilani. Treilani."

Talos fell to the ground, still swatting at anything around him. The giant metal man began rolling around in the dirt, even falling into the shallow water a little bit. It didn't seem like the water affected him though. Either way, Percy watched in a wild fascination as the automaton slowly went mad.

Eventually, there was a loud, sickening, rusty pop and something gushed out of Talos like a water fountain. But it wasn't water at all. The fluid gushing out of Talos had a golden color to it making it easily recognizable. It was ichor. The ichor ran out of him like molten lead.

The keres went away and everything turned back to the way they were before just with one exception: it was silent.

Silence had rippled over the crowd like a single pebble fell into an ever-still pond. Periclymenus was the first to break the silence.

"Crete," he said. "This is Crete. We are so close to home, oh so very close."

"Greece," Jason murmured. "We will finally see our homes again, after years of voyaging, we have made it home."

"My kingdom," Ancaeus beamed hopefully. "My people, my wife."

"To our father, Boreas," the Boreads grinned happily.

"To play music for all of Greece to enjoy," Orpheus said.

Zoë grabbed Percy's hand and quietly said, "And to dangerous quests in all hopes to reach Olympus."

"Meleager," Atalanta muttered.

"To become the rightful heir to the Athenian throne," Theseus smiled.

The Argo floated on the water, drifting as the current pulled them past Crete and toward the lands that most of the crew of the Argonauts called home. The sun still glimmered happily in the sky, midday turning into early afternoon. Percy looked out at the view of the distant but close lands of Greece as they were now in sight.

"We're finally going home."

Hey everyone,

Hope you enjoy this chapter.

I apologize for any grammatical errors in the chapter above and if any historical facts are actually wrong. I have spent my time looking through different websites, and even a couple of books, but the story that will continue may have incorrect historical info. Still, I believe it just adds to the effect.

With best regards,
SharkAttack719