In the last second, Lil dam seemed to realize what situation we were in- no, what situation he was in, cats don't care about humans, and shadow traveled away. I landed next to Percy, Annabeth and Mrs. O'Leary who were watching from a safe distance as the drakon crashed into the maple tree, knocking it over. As I had expected, this released the titanic energy that was still stored in the tree, engulfing the drakon in fire. When the fire ceased, the drakon was heavily injured but not dead. And now, it was very angry and coming right towards us. I noticed a small hole in its armor where one of the scales had fallen or burned off. "Run" I told Percy and Annabeth which they gladly did. As the drakon followed them, I had perfect access to its side. "If fire doesn't kill it" I said. "Maybe ice will" before stabbing my sword into the small unprotected patch. The impact knocked me off my feet, but the sword got stuck and before long, the drakon stopped moving.

I caught up with my friends, retrieving my sword as I walked past it. "Wonder how much property damage that created. Like, just the amount of cars it crushed has to be at least half of what my neighbor owns" "I can't tell if you're bragging or complaining" Annabeth responded. "You're the smart one, you tell me" "How am I supposed to know? I'm good with plans and logic. How people mean things follows no logic. Apparently there's people who are really good at figuring that out, but whatever" "Yeah, whatever" Percy said. "Now, let's address the elephant in the room; What do we do with this massive corpse?" Annabeth began inspecting it. "Most of the body seems alright, but I'm not an expert on drakons…" She sat down in the grass, seemingly very dissociated. After a while, she looked around. "Hi Percy. Hi Piper. It's Chris but you probably figured that out by my voice and the fact that we just spent a lot of time around something that would logically be triggering to me" "Now that you say it, it is pretty obvious" "So, any ideas on what to do with this?" "We were just talking about that before you came out" "Oh, okay. I guess Damasen would be the expert on using drakon resources, but I've seen a thing or two as well. If I recall correctly, their meat is not only edible, but quite good" "I'm out" I announced. "Meat isn't really my thing" "Okay"

Percy

"You're right, it makes amazing jerky. But who would take all of this. Creatures this big haven't been killed since the times of commercial whale hunting" "It's a good thing they stopped that. Whales always have the coolest stories" "So, back to this thing here. Technically, Piper killed it so every spoil is hers" "You can have it" "Thanks. The scales might be useful for armor pieces, the bones as well since they are stronger than stygian iron but the leather and meat… I guess I'll give that to the people who need it most and who we also happen to owe a lot to" "Who would that be?" Piper asked. "The first community we were ever part of: The homeless" "And how exactly do you plan on doing that? Do we just go to the nearest shelter and say we'd like to donate a pile of food the size of a small train" "Why not?" "Because you don't do stuff like that" "But is there a reason not to do it?" "I guess not really, but neurotypicals have this annoying habit of making up rules and getting really offended when you break them" "Fine, different strategy. This is way too much for one entity to distribute anyways. I'd say we let them come here themselves, but I have no idea how or even if that would work. I guess you'd have to ask the littles for that. Maybe I can reach them, but our communication is still horrible. Can I trust you with the body?" "Sure" "Of course" "Bye. Oh, it might help to trigger them positively" I reached for Annabeth's dagger, then held it out in front of the body since that was a trigger for Annie. After a few minutes, the body began to move again. "Percy!" an excited little voice said. "Who is it?" Piper asked. "Hi Piper. It's Annie. And Luisa" You could hear a slight variation in voice during those last two words, along with a short pause, so the two had probably introduced themselves separately. "What is that?" Annie said before turning to me and hiding her face in my shirt. I personally considered it really cute. "It looks scary" "And it was. That is a meaonian drakon, but it's dead now. Piper killed it" "She's so cool" "Come on, I just delivered the final blow. Hyperion did most of the work" "I think you did great. So, why do you need us?" "The drakon has a lot of usable meat on it, and we decided to donate that to the homeless" "We're homeless. Well, we were. But then we got to camp. Most homeless people can't go to Camp Half-blood, so they need help. I like your idea" "We figured since you two have been homeless for a while, you'd know the best way to make sure they actually get the resources" "We're not exactly experts on it, but we can try" "First of all, we'd have to somehow get around the fact that this is a mythical creature, something that they think doesn't exist" "Don't worry. Most homeless are a bit weird in the head anyways from their powders and drinks" "That's great. Well, drugs are probably not that good for them, but it's good for us"

"I guess you'd have to tell everyone about what happened. We'd need some sort of messenger for that" "A messenger for homeless people. Who would that even be" "I don't know, maybe we could try the mole people" "The… mole people? Is that some sort of monster I haven't heard of?" "You mean like satyrs, but as moles instead of goats? No, they're humans. They are the homeless that live in the tunnels below the city" "And they can help us?" "Yeah. They're like ants" "Uh, ants? That's sounds really mean to compare them to insects. I thought you liked them" "But that was a compliment. Ants are so cool and smart. Honestly, being compared to ants is an honor" "Okay, I get it" I did not, in fact, get it "So, what makes them like ants" "They're organized. They work together and help each other out. I guess all homeless people do that sometimes, but the mole people I've met are the most cooperative group. They even held outsiders. Though it probably helps when the outsider is seven and as cute as me" "Probably. But we don't really want their help right now, we are here to offer our help and just need them to spread the word, so our cuteness is irrelevant" "And even if we do need to do some convincing, I can help with that. Charm speaking multiple people at once is a lot harder, but I'll manage" "Then let's go. If I remember right, most of the mole people live in the freedom tunnel. Don't know where that is though" "I think I know that place" I said. "Under the west side highway. It's an old Amtrak tunnel that was abandoned for a while, but in the nineties they started using it again" "Why do you know so much? That's our job" "Nothing motivates you to do research quite like a presentation that's worth twenty percent of your grade. I could also tell you some things about the role it played logistically, but I don't think this is the time to do that" "Yeah, only we get to infodump. Let's get going" We climbed onto Mrs. O'Leary's back and she shadow traveled to the nearest entrance to the tunnel. It was just a hole in the ground where part of the wall has collapsed. We carefully made our way into the tunnel.

"Annie?" "Yeah" "I'll get my sword now. Don't be scared" "Okay" I uncapped riptide, filling the tunnel with dim bronze light. "Okay, I got you into the tunnel, now it's your turn to find someone" "Okay. A lot of people have electricity, so we just need to follow the cables" "This is a train tunnel, there's cables everywhere. There's literally like ten cables right here" "But those are train cables. We need to find… wild cables" "Wild cables? You mean cables that look like they don't belong here?" "Right. I just didn't have the words" "That's alright. Then let's find some wild cables"

I was the first to spot it. A small red cable that split into two strands, both of which were clamped into a box in the wall. I assumed that it had once been a jumper cable. This was definitely not installed by the railway company (or they had some really lazy employees) "I got one" I called to the others. "Yes, that's a wild cable. By the way, it's more Luisa now because I have a bit more experience with mole people" We followed the cable for another fifty meters or so until we found a cable drum. From there, one cable continued down the tunnel while another ran up the wall to a door. When I put away riptide, a tiny shimmer of light was visible through the cracks of the door, so someone probably lived there. "I think I should talk to him" Piper said. "Probably" "Is anyone there?" She asked. "Don't be scared, we just want to talk" The door slowly opened and a man, probably in his sixties, stuck his head out. "Who are you? Are you from the police?" "No, we're just some teens" "How did you find me?" "We noticed the cable running into your home" "I knew I should have hidden that better. Anyways, want to tell me your names?" "I'm Piper and these guys are Percy and Annabeth" "I'm Walter. Now, what do you want?" "We wanted to make you a gift. Well, not you specifically but all homeless people, you were just the first one we encountered" "The first one? They are everywhere on the streets" "My friend told me that people like you- the mole people- were generally better organized, so we figured we should contact them. Can we come in. We won't hurt you" "Fine. Come up" He dropped down a ladder and we entered his little room. Once I saw it, I realized that Walter was not homeless. Maybe he didn't have a house that he had legally acquired, but he most definitely had a home. "So, what is this gift you were talking about" "We have a lot of food and other resources, uh, left over. We decided to donate the meat to the homeless" "Why didn't you just bring everything to a shelter?" "It's a lot of material. Too much for us to move. You'll find everything in central part, just north of the 97th. Do you have means of informing everyone else?" "Everyone else?" "Preferably the entire homeless population of Manhattan. If you want to eat every before it goes bad, which will be maybe two days with this weather, you'll need thousands" "That sounds very suspicious. Like, that would be a great way to get rid of us all at once" Now Luisa spoke, her voice closer to Annabeth than usual. "You can trust us. I have been homeless myself, so I know how much people don't like us, so we're just trying to be nice" "If you say so. I still don't really trust you" Piper spoke again. "Well, if you get enough people and it does turn out to be a trap, you'll easily outnumber the police. Also, I don't think they'd even consider a plan like that. If they really wanted you gone, I figure they'd probably use something like tear gas" "Or violent force. So far they're pretty chill about us currently though. I guess there's a reason they call this the freedom tunnel. Then I guess I'll inform my friends now, they inform their friends and everyone will find out" "Good. Thanks for your help" "You're the ones to be thanked. If you're telling the truth, you're helping out literally thousands of people" "I guess so" Piper finished the conversation. Well, she probably thought she had finished it, but then Luisa asked "Why do you have so many computers?" "Oh, I go looking for old computer parts and put them back together, then I sell them for a good price. Brings in most of my money, but I can also make a few dollars canning" "So you're making money and cleaning the city. That's great" "Yeah. I got of pretty well considering how I'm unemployed and homeless" "I think this is a home" "Trust her" I said. "She's the smarter person I know" "Okay then. I'd say we'll show up maybe thirty minutes from now, so if there's anything you still need to prepare, do it now" "We'll do that. Goodbye" "Bye. And thanks again" We left Walter's home and he closed the door. "We could help them" Luisa said excitedly. "Let's hope he actually manages to contact his friends" As she talked, her voice slowly changed to how it normally was. "Acting old is hard" she explained. "There's so many stupid rules old people have to remember. Politeness and all that stuff. I'm too small for that" "Don't worry, you did great" I assured her. "Gods, she so cute" Piper said. "Did I just say that out loud?" "You did. And you're right. I am cute and therefore worth protecting" Piper looked at her in a way that made it seem like she understood a lot more than I did. "I'm guessing there's some significant to that that I don't know about yet" "Yeah. I'll explain it later" "Yeah. Let's get out of here" We followed the tunnel back to the access point we had entered through and left the freedom tunnel. Mrs. O'Leary was already waiting for us. We got on her back and shadow traveled back to Central Park. This was where she decided to fall asleep. I couldn't blame her. Who wouldn't be exhausted after teleporting around this much? I got off her back and approached the drakon. The thing was massive. It could probably fit an entire car in its mouth and I was very glad it was dead now. I again thought about how we could use it to our advantage. The horns looked pretty cool, but would probably be pretty useless otherwise. Also, I already owned a monster horn, so I left it where it was. I tried to recall what I had seen in the swamp. I had spent most of my time outside the hut trying not to die, but I did remember some stuff. Once we had checked the outside, it was time to access what was inside. I knew the homeless population wouldn't be able to get through the drakon's thick leather, so I'd have to give them access. I used a tree to get onto the drakon's back then made a cut alongside it.

We spent the next twenty minutes preparing the drakon for whomever wanted something from it. I'll save you the details. Just a few moments after we had finished, the first people arrived and one of them approached me. He looked okay for someone with no access to running water, a proper razor or a mirror. "Hey, I've heard you've got food here" "Over there. Suit yourself" "That is not food. That is a rusty train car" "Um no, that's just an illusion. If you focus really hard, you might be able to tell" He squinted at the drakon's body. "Whoa, what is that?" "It's a mythological beast whose meat is edible. You can take as much as you want" "I need to stop taking this stuff. Fine, I'll try your weird train car meat" "Good. And tell anyone else who might appear" "I'll do that" I left the guy, who was now probably very confused, alone and went back to the girls. "How's it going?" I asked. "I'm fine" Piper said. "They got scared and are currently switching out" "Whoever's coming out, I don't want to be them" "Why?" "This is the fifth or sixth switch today, so they'll probably have a massive headache" "Right, Annabeth told me about that" "Speaking of things that Annabeth told you, what was that 'I'm small and worthy of protection' thing about?" "Oh, that. So, I'm assuming Annabeth told you about her first spider encounter?" "Swarm attack at seven. I'm familiar" "So, she obviously told her parents. I'm assuming her stepmom thought she was lying which I guess is a valid assumption" "Not if she knew anything about the goddess whose daughter she was raising, but whatever" "So, Annabeth's stepmom said something along the lines of 'You're a big girl know'. She obviously meant it as 'You're a big girl now, stop playing pretend', but young Annabeth interpreted it as-" "As 'You're a big girl now, deal with it yourself', so now Luisa equates being old with being unworthy of protection" "That's pretty much what she told me a while back, just in a less self-reflective way"