AN: Merry Christmas everyone! Hope you all have a great day, and enjoy my Christmas offering!

So it's been a while. I could bore you with the details, but you probably don't want to hear about that.

Instead I'll just say, here is chapter 10. Not much to say other than that though, other than that I hope you all have a great Christmas and a Happy New Year, and you enjoy the chapter.

Another thing while I am at it, is this. I am a part of a discord group, there's tonnes of others there, plenty of writers, admittedly mainly PJO, but other stuff too. Feel free to pop along and say hi, I'm always happy to chat about the stuff I am writing. So if you fancy it please do to join by sticking this: discord .gg / elibrary into discord, with no spaces, or using the link on my bio.

Thanks for reading and please do leave a review, that or feel free to PM, I am usually much better at answering those!

Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson.

Betaed by Arch_Angel in December 2022

( - )

(Last Time)

"Shotgun the Maserati," Percy called out tiredly, scratching the back of his neck and pulling his newly acquired Nemean Lion hide jacket tighter around him as he then proceeded to climb into the leather passenger seat in a vibrant, red Maserati Spyder, already stifling a yawn as he adjusted the seat to make it lean back as far as possible.

Exhausted after the battle, and their subsequent journey from the museum to the railway yard, the others followed his lead.

With both Phoebe and Bianca climbing into a yellow Ferrari, their muted voices softly drifting over to where Percy was seated, even as they got themselves settled. For once Phoebe wasn't being a bitch, as she instead seemed to be trying to cheer Bianca up and offer her words of comfort. Thalia meanwhile climbed in the black Lamborghini and made herself comfortable, even as Percy subconsciously felt her gaze resting on him for a moment.

As for Zoe, after checking on both Phoebe and Bianca, and doing a walk around of the carriage, probably checking for trouble, she climbed into the driver seat of the Maserati, her dark eyes fixed on him. "We need to talk..."

( - )

Chapter 11

( - )

(With Percy)

"Oh really," Percy replied softly, as he turned to look at the older girl, his eyes tracing her up her lithe form, before focusing on her face. She truly was beautiful he thought, what with her dark obsidian eyes, a slightly upturned nose, high cheekbones, and copper coloured skin. Add in the intricate silver circlet she had braided into her long, dark hair, and she looked like some kind of Persian princess.

She was gorgeous.

Though not in a human way.

Thalia was beautiful, even with the punk aesthetic -if anything he found the whole punk thing added to her charm. As too were both Bianca, Phoebe, and most demigods too for that matter, especially the children of Aphrodite/ Venus. Say what you will about the downsides of being a demigod, at least you were guaranteed to be hot.

But Zoe's beauty was different from his companions and many of the other demigods he had met and seen, it was more remote, and exotic.

It lacked the humanity and warmth that was so apparent in a regular, hot demigod's features.

Zoe's was an ageless, regal, and alien beauty.

Her allure was as beautiful as the stars themselves, though just as distant.

It was very much like the beauty of a god. It was inhuman in a way that was almost off-putting at times, despite how radiant she was.

For all the humanity, personality and charm a god or goddess might ooze when they wanted to, it was little more than a shallow veneer, a carefully manufactured act. They copied the way humans acted, almost perfectly so. But they were still only mimicking human behaviour, playing whichever part they had chosen in that moment.

Deep down they were completely different to mortals, including demigods, in almost every way possible.

Time had no meaning to them, not really.

Their emotions and sensibilities were so different to those of a regular human, so antiquated and alien, that they might as well be from another planet.

Their outward appearances were likewise a charade, a perfectly crafted shell.

They could change their appearance at will, and appear as anything or anyone they wanted, as such they were at their core nothing, not really.

The constant, deliberate, almost cynical fluidity of their appearance and outward personalities, was the very antithesis of humanity.

Where humans were born, and in many ways immutable in their own short lifetimes; the product of generations of DNA and genetics mixing and matching; a prime example of generational evolution, change and adaptation; gods were merely very skilled mimics. They were unnatural frauds, trying to mimic the very thing that made humans so human. Not so they could better understand them, though. But instead, so that they could manipulate, trick, deceive and play around with them as and when they wanted.

A gods' beauty was at its core ugly.

They were a malformed contradiction, an aberration of nature, and in more ways than one.

To a lesser extent, and in the nicest possible way, Zoe Nightshade reminded him of the gods.

She was outwardly beautiful and graceful, yet internally she was cold, hard and calculating. Her outward appearance was little more than a beautiful veneer which distracted from the strong, powerful being within. A being that was so out of touch with the times that she didn't even have the same lexicon as those around her. She was a woman, in the form of a girl, that had spent so many untold years in the company of the Artemis and her immortal girl scouts that she had lost any and all traces of the humanity she might once have had.

Or, at least that's what he thought, not that he ever planned on vocalising these thoughts to the prickly Hunter.

"So what's on your mind," Percy continued, dragging his mind back to the heart and now and putting on his own charade of charming interest now, even as he shifted in his seat to face her.

It was like looking in a metaphorical mirror.

"You," Zoe replied shortly, her brow furrowed -and even that was in an annoyingly beautiful way- as she seemed to ponder over what she wanted to say next.

"Well, I have heard I have that effect on women," Percy smiled, his eyes flashing gold as his vision shifted, turning darkness into light. It was gloomy in the train carriage, and Zoe was a difficult to read person at the best of times. He needed all the help he could get now she had cornered him and had ominously stated the desired topic she wanted to speak about.

Zoe grimaced at his response, her nose wrinkling cutely and her lip curling up in disgust.

"Not on mine self you don't, nor on my sisters," Zoe answered, her expression smoothing out again as she pushed away her disgust like one would swat away an errant fly. "No, I have pondered much of late on my actions and past words against thou, and have concluded that I have been most harsh and discourteous."

"Ah, so you want to apologise about the whole, you know, you declaring me a scavenger thing?" Percy grinned, his golden eyes twinkling in the darkness. "Well, why didn't you just say so? Either way, I wasn't really that offended. I mean, I am kind of a scavenger of sorts. Most of what I own was taken from the corpses of other demigods, or the lairs of monsters, so really you were just being rudely truthful." Zoe gave him a blank look for a moment, before letting out a small growl of frustration.

"You do not understand. I do not apologise for telling truths, even when they are unpalatable to those I speak to. What I meant previously, was that I have been discourteous and dismissive of your abilities, and of what you bring to the quest. I dismissed you based on your gender, and previous attitude. That was a mistake, you have more to offer the quest than I previously acknowledged, and it would be remiss of me to continue dismissing you as an asset."

"Okay," Percy said slowly, un-muddling what she had just said. Her accent and lexicon did not make it easy. She seemed to mix antiquated old English with modern English, and sometimes in the same sentence. It was slightly jarring. "So you're not sorry about calling me a scavenger, but you are sorry about being a dick and dismissing what I bring to the table in terms of my skills and abilities?"

"That is what I just said," Zoe nodded irritably.

"Uh huh," Percy replied, unimpressed. The girl, for all her age and experience, was not good at apologising.

"But that is not all that I wanted to speak of," Zoe pressed on, shifting about in her seat as she gave him a steady, flat look. "As the leader of this quest, I would like to know just who and what thou art?" Percy cocked an eyebrow.

"I 'art' Percy, which is short for Perseus, as you already know. I am fifteen'ish, again, as I've already told you. My mother is Melinoe, and I'm a demigod. That's all there is to it." Percy said, twisting the truth to fit the current fiction he had chosen for the sake of the mission.

"You both create and manipulate fire, those are things that a child of Melinoe can not do. I have met the Lady of Ghost's spawn before in ages past. They were never as strong as you, nor as… versatile." Zoe shot back, an unimpressed look on her face.

"I must have some legacy of another divine in me then," Percy shrugged dismissively. "It does happen."

"Few are the number of gods and goddesses both that wield fire as you do, fewer still are the children that inherit such gifts. Children of Apollo and Hephaestus have sometimes been known to gain such abilities, but very rarely. Only thrice in my over two thousand years have I seen a Child of Hephaestus control fire, and I have only seen one Apollo's offspring gain dominion over the flames of the sun. And those were pure-bred demigods, direct descendants of their sires and favoured children at that. But even those four were not capable of wielding the power you did in the museum…" Zoe said, her dark eyes narrowing as she looked him up and down, her gaze momentarily lingering on his coat for a few moments longer than necessary, before returning to his face.

"I don't know what to say then," Percy said, cataloguing away the Hunter's apparent age -he had thought she was old, but wow-, even as he pondered on the best way to quickly curtail this conversation before her questions became too difficult to brush off.

"Then allow me to speak clearly and honestly," Zoe said, not even batting an eye at his evasion. "I do not think that you are a child of Lady Melinoe. Maybe a legacy that she has jealously sort to claim for her own self-aggrandizement, but nothing more. Instead, I think you are the child of something older, and more dangerous than a mere minor god like Lady Melinoe."

"You say that like you look down on her for being a minor god," Percy shot back, his eyes narrowing as he remembered his conversation with Melinoe. "She is still a god, remember, and has claimed me as her son. You should be more respectful, because if any gods should be respected and feared by mortals, it should be those of the underworld. You know, I mean, they are the ones that rule over the afterlife…, as people who'll probably die one day we should be shit scared of pissing them off, no?"

"I am not mortal," Zoe replied sharply, before with a sigh she calmed herself. "But even so, thou art right. I spoke in haste. Lady Melinoe is indeed a god, and thus should be respected. However, I stand by my previous words."

"What? That you think that I, me, Percy the son of Melinoe, am the child of another god?" Percy chuckled, "Despite already being claimed… by my mother, Melinoe?"

"Yes," Zoe replied bluntly, artfully ignoring his bluster. "There is something about your eyes, the colour and their shape, and the features of your face that are very familiar. If one were to stand the two of us next to one another we would look closely related, and I am not the only one who has noticed such similarities. Phoebe has also seen the same, so much so that she has mentioned it to me in private. There is a similarity between our appearances, Percy, one that I believe you to have noticed."

"Not sure how to break this to you, Zoe, but the Greek Pantheon is kind of inbred… we're all basically related on our godly parents side of things…" Percy outwardly laughed. The gods were notorious for shagging one another, even when they were brother and sister.

Internally however, he was more perturbed.

He didn't actually know who his father was, it was one of the big mysteries of his life.

His mother, he knew, had abandoned him when he was young. Just why she did so, he wasn't sure. After all with demigods it could have been a dozen different things; from her just not wanting a kid, to her being scared of the constant monster attacks, or any of a dozen other things. Raising a demigod was not an easy task, and definitely not for the faint of heart. That said, a part of him strongly suspected that there were godly hijinks involved. Either way, his own father's identity was still a mystery to him, and one that would probably continue to remain a mystery, after all he couldn't just rock up and ask the woman that abandoned him who his dad was.

"You joke, but I can see I have struck a chord." Zoe said softly, once again adroitly sidestepping his misdirect.

She was a lot smarter than she let on, almost dangerously so.

"Uh huh, so what, you think we're brother and sister or something?" Percy asked, shifting once again in the seat of his car. "Because if that were the case, the age gap between us would be pretty big."

"No, my father has been otherwise occupied these last millennia, and my mother has long since faded from the world. You are not my sibling, but I suspect you of being a possible close cousin," Zoe said, her tone wavering uncertainly as she studied him closely, her dark eyes tracing over his face, taking in every minute detail. "Maybe…"

"You sound unsure," Percy said dryly. "Who even is your father? And don't bang on about me asking 'impertinent' questions either, not after the way you've basically called me out for apparently 'lying' about the mother that claimed me, and then verbally vivisected me in order to work out something that I don't even know the answer to!"

"So, thou does not know thyself whether Lady Melinoe is really thine own mother?" Zoe asked quickly, instantly jumping on his little slip up.

It turned out he wasn't as cool under pressure as he had previously thought, or at least not when it came to being ruthlessly cross examined by the ancient and tricky Lieutenant of the Hunt. Plotting and carrying out a few murders was far easier and less stressful than this shit.

"Don't dodge the question, who are you really, Zoe Nightshade?" Percy shot back, turning her previous question back around on her, his eyes narrowing as he watched her closely. She was not the most readable of people. "And just who is the General that has you so terrified? Who is he to you?" He said, before he paused at her minute flinch, and then pressed on. "He's your father, isn't he?"

Zoe's expression went completely blank, all traces of excitement, curiosity and irritation receding as she instead gave him a stoney look.

"Well, go on, I answered your questions as best as I was able. Your turn to spill the truth now, for the good of the quest?" Percy pressed ruthlessly. Their conversation had escalated far beyond what he had expected it to, but even so, he was much happier now that he had turned things around on the prickly Hunter. He was not comfortable being on the back foot.

That, and he was also curious about her answer.

Despite what he had insinuated previously, he had in fact noticed the resemblance between himself and Zoe. Before, however, he had just dismissed it, as he had believed it to be a coincidence, a simple byproduct of the goddess constantly changing their appearances. Surely if they change their appearance with the times, and often with humanities ever changing perception of attractiveness and beauty, there would be some crossover.

But now she had pointed out the similarity, his interest was piqued.

Zoe obviously knew a lot more than him about certain things, she was far older than him and far more experienced with the divine world, and the world in general. If she had a clue as to who his father was, then he would find out and use it however he could to find out just who the self-serving bastard was, so he could then punch him in the face for abandoning him and his mother to the cruel whims of Poseidon, the god that from what he could tell, had apparently taken his mother after his father was out of the picture.

"It's complicated." Zoe answered, leaning back in her seat and turning away from him. She was now facing forward in her seat, her eyes locked on the Mercedes in front of them as she stared out of the sports car's front windscreen.

"It always is when it comes to families," Percy said mildly, before his lip quirked upwards as he saw Zoe glance over to him. "I've heard… I mean, the orphanage I grew up in wasn't much of a family, but it was kinder than the real world, and I did have some semblance of a familial relationship with the other brats, and ironically, the nuns too for that matter."

"It is complicated," Zoe agreed after a moment. "And you are right, the identity of the General, my father, is indeed important to the quest."

Percy nodded, but didn't otherwise speak, as he instead watched her closely. He didn't want to put her off when she seemed to be on the verge of spilling this great secret of hers, one which may in fact help unravel one of the great mysteries in his own life.

"His name is Atlas, the Titan of Strength and Endurance, and my father." Zoe said bluntly.

She didn't sugar coat things.

But he kinda liked that.

Percy nodded, his eyes narrowing as he felt the atmosphere within the carriage grow moment heavier at the mention of the titan general's name.

He had assumed the man at the museum was a titan, pretty much everything he had seen and heard had pointed that way, but he had still been partially on the fence as to just which one he was.

"He is the one that was cursed to hold up the sky, right?" Percy asked, making sure not to say the name more than necessary. Names had power in the divine world, especially the names of powerful beings, like the Titans and Olympians.

"Yes, he was trapped holding up the sky on the peak of Mount Othrys, which is currently located in California, and is now known by the name of Mount Tamalpais." Zoe nodded, meeting his gaze steadily with her own dark eyes. There was no shame in her gaze, or embarrassment. He could see that she had long since found peace with the identity of her father.

He could, however, see that there was worry and concern in her gaze.

"Okay, so if he is out and about and no longer trapped then that must mean someone else is now holding up the sky, and considering California hasn't shattered to pieces -more's the pity-, then that someone has to be someone nearly as strong as him, so a god or maybe another titan…?" Percy said thoughtfully. He could now guess what had Zoe so concerned.

"Yes, I suspect that Lady Artemis is being forced to hold up the sky in his stead." Zoe said somberly, giving voice to his thoughts, her expression downcast.

Percy nodded at that, even as another thought occurred to him.

"The girl, Annabeth," Percy muttered, his brow furrowed as he tried to work out how Artemis would have been forced into that position. Somehow he didn't see her being physically forced under the sky. Taking it on willingly, however, that was a possibility. Of course, if that was in fact what had happened, then that undermined one of his core beliefs about the gods... "But no…"

"I expect so, Lady Artemis takes her duties seriously and would sacrifice much to safeguard the life of an innocent child." Zoe nodded. He could see a gleam of what looked like pride and respect in her gaze now as she spoke of her friend, and patron goddess.

"So I guess we'll have to go to Tamalpais then? I mean, that is the point of the quest. But still, if the General, your father is going to be there… and considering the prophecy…?" Percy said, his brow furrowing.

"Yes," Zoe said softly, neither of them giving word to the ominous possibility of what would most likely happen on Mount Tamalpais. "Lady Artemis is likely in great distress and pain even as we speak, which is why we must make as much haste as possible to save her." Percy half-heartedly nodded his agreement.

"So you're a demititan then?" Percy said into the awkward silence that followed, deliberately changing the topic.

"I'm a former Hesperide," Zoe corrected, "My mother was the sea goddess, Pleione, and my sisters are the nymphs of the sunset and evening, as was I once, many, many years ago…"

"The Hesperides," Percy muttered, as he dredged his knowledge of Greco-Roman mythology for the relevant myth or legend. "They're the ones who tend to the Garden of the Hesperides and Hera's magic apple tree, right?"

"Yes," Zoe said curtly, a curious look on her face as she studied him closely. "Thine's knowledge of one's own heritage is surprisingly fractured. But yes, they nurture Lady Hera's sacred tree, a gift from Lord Zeus himself, and look after its guardian, the great dragon, Ladon."

Percy hummed at that. "Cool."

"At first I had found you suspicious and had thought you odd, and potentially a traitor. Now I do not know what to think." Zoe said bluntly, her gaze still on him as she now abruptly changed the topic. "You often speak in half-truths, but I sense no malice from you, nor have I sensed any treachery thus far on the quest. For a nomadic, scavenger and possible demititan, you are oddly honourable."

"Well, that came out of nowhere," Percy muttered, somewhat taken aback by her words, before quickly recovering. "And are you still on that demititan crap, look Melinoe claimed me as her own, I don't reckon she would have done that if I wasn't. I mean, hypothetically if my godly parent was actually a titan, which I'm not saying they are what with my godly parent being a woman, but I somehow doubt they would be happy to let her claim what they would no doubt think was their 'property'?"

"Maybe, unless she saw the advantage of the titans being our enemies, and took it. The minor gods have long since chafed under the authority of the Olympians, especially those bound to the underworld out of sight and unwelcome in the golden halls of Olympus." Zoe said idly.

"Once again, kind of being disrespectful there. My 'mother' is weird and all, but she seems decent enough, and if she says she's my mum then fuck it, I believe her." Percy waved her off.

Zoe was being oddly candid at the moment.

"As is your right, and worry not, I will keep my thoughts and opinions to mineself with regards to your parentage, thou's secrets are thine own." Zoe replied, an odd smile playing around her full lips as she opened the door of the Maserati and stepped out.

"Whatever," Percy said dismissively, before pausing, his gaze back on her. "Zoe, before, you mentioned that you thought I was a cousin of yours… like you said before my knowledge of mythology is somewhat iffy in places, so which titans were you referring to when you said that?"

"The Titan of Light, Hyperion, who has long since been imprisoned in Tartarus, and the Titan of the Sun, Helios, who has not been seen in many a century. Some believe he has faded." Zoe said softly, a slight smile still playing around her lips, despite the direness of her previous words.

Ignoring the sudden surge of heat in his chest he felt at her words, Percy loudly scoffed and shook his head. "So a moron that got himself locked up in Greek Hell, and another who has probably faded. Somehow, I don't see either of them as viable father figures, especially since, if you remember, my godly parent was a woman… then again gods do change appearances all the time, and there was that story about Poseidon turning into a horse to fuck…"

Grimacing at the direction the conversation was going, Zoe loudly opened the door to the Maserati and made a show about leaving.

"And on that note, I will bid thee a good night, Percy. Our talk has been, maybe not as illuminating as I had first hoped, but at least pleasant in places. I appreciate you joining the quest. Sleep well, for we will be moving on as soon as Lord Apollo's train comes to a stop." Zoe said, an odd, indecipherable smile once again playing round her lips as she nodded and turned away, her dark hair swirling about behind her as she then headed back to the car she had chosen to rest in for the night.

Grunting in response, Percy muttered good night, even as he leant back in his plush, leather seat and pondered on all he had learned to night, his mind moving a mile a minute as a plan quickly started to take shape in his head.

( - )

(Sometime later)

Percy blinked in confusion as he suddenly felt someone start shaking him, rousing from the nice doze he had just been enjoying. Despite the sports car being rather small and cramped, it was surprisingly comfortable, especially after he had put the seat back as far as it could go and had reclined it so far that it was almost horizontal.

Blinking his bleary eyes as he felt the hand on his shoulder continue to shake him, his eyes snapped open to find a pair of striking, electric blue ones boring into him, even as the owner of said eyes continued to impatiently jostle him into consciousness.

"What is it?" He grumbled grumpily, rubbing the sleep from his eyes with the palm of his hand, even as he groaned and sat up; he could feel his back and shoulders cracking.

"Get up, the train's stopped, and we need to get moving." Thalia said brusquely, as she stepped back and opened the door. "Just be glad

I was the one to wake you. If I left it up to one of the others, it would have been Phoebe waking you up with an arrow."

Percy blinked a few times and nodded, "Yep, that sounds about right for her. Just as excessive, mean spirited and unnecessary as I've come to expect."

"Well, yeah, she seems to be in a pretty bad mood at the moment. She has been ever since we got on the train." Thalia replied with a shrug.

"The Sunwest Line," Percy said mildly, ruffling his hair and clearing his chest with a cough. "Call me crazy, but I think she has a bit of an issue with Apollo. This whole fortunate coincidence with the train that just magically appeared, and which just happened to be heading in the right direction, has his fingerprints all over it."

"Well, he is Artemis's twin brother. They might be gods, but I'm sure that still means something." Thalia said with a shrug. "I mean, families are complicated. You'd be surprised what a sister would do for her brother, or a brother for his sister."

"I wouldn't know," Percy replied nonchalantly, idly ignoring the fact he almost certainly had a half-brother on his mother's side of the family. He'd only found out about the little shit a few days ago, he hadn't even had the time to process his own feelings on the matter, let alone come to terms with the fact he wasn't as alone as he first thought.

"I would. Being a demigod sometimes sucks," Thalia nodded with a sad smile.

"That it does," Percy agreed, giving her a soft smile and her shoulder a slight squeeze, before he then shouldered his satchel, pulled his coat tighter around him and stepped out of the car. After which, without another word, he turned to find the rest of their group and found

Phoebe, Bianca, and Zoe, all counting out their remaining arrows, and standing near the door of the carriage

"It's nice of you to finally get your lazy arse out of bed, scavenger." Phoebe spat out grumpily as Percy approached.

Percy clenched his fists in irritation; it might be that she just wasn't a morning person, or was in a bad mood because of Apollo the night before, but Phoebe was really starting to piss him off.

It was getting to the point that he had to bite back a retort, if only for the sake of his mission, and to a lesser extent the others in the group; those who had been either friendly from the start like Thalia, neutral like Bianca, or had at least made a clumsy attempt at peace, like Zoe.

Before he could try and say anything in response however, Thalia noticed his anger and spoke up for him.

"What is your problem, Phoebe? What exactly has Percy done to you besides breath, and try to help save your mistress? Do everyone a favour and shut the fuck up!" Thalia snapped, her blue eyes flashing with anger.

Blinking in surprise, Percy gave her a sideways look, even as Bianca shrank back a little and Phoebe made to step forward with a snarl on her face, one of her hands already moving to grasp one of the hilts of her sheathed hunting knives

Taking a step forward, Zoe also surprised Percy as she placed a restraining hand on Phoebe's shoulder. "No, Phoebe, she is right. Things are already tense enough; we are all tired and stressed, we all need to calm down. We can't get to Lady Artemis if we're going to be fighting the whole time. So just leave any animosity you might have to either Percy or Thalia for now, so we might instead focus on getting to Lady Artemis. The prophecy clearly states that we need campers and hunters united, or we will fail. So for the sake of Lady Artemis and the Hunt, just lay off the boy for the rest of the trip."

Phoebe scowled, but otherwise said nothing, as she instead curtly nodded to her lieutenant before throwing the fright cart's doors open and storming outside into the early morning sun.

Staring at the spot she stormed off from, Percy blinked as he tried to work out what to say next.

He hadn't been expecting either Thalia or Zoe to stand up for him, even if Zoe's reasoning was more pragmatic than anything else.

Similarly, Bianca also looked uncertain, as she looked between him and her lieutenant, worrying her lip with her teeth and fiddling with the end of her freshly braided black hair.

"I would not worry about Phoebe, she is just short-tempered about the situation and worried about Lady Artemis. I would not take it personally; she'll get over her anger quickly. Now let us go, we must soon leave. The day may have only just dawned, but we still have much ground still to cover." Zoe said, her hand coming to rest on Bianca's shoulder, startling the younger girl, before with a nod to them both she also left the carriage, Bianca following along silently behind her.

Watching them go for a moment, Percy looked back at Thalia, a small smile playing around his lips, "Thanks for that Thalia, I didn't expect you to have my back, but I'm grateful that you did."

Thalia shrugged, "Don't worry about it. She was getting on my nerves too. She's just a bitch. Honestly, I would have thought she'd have started being nicer after, you know, you went all Human Torch at the Smithsonian."

"Is that a DC reference?" Percy smiled, he'd heard that name before.

"Marvel, you heretic," Thalia grinned back. "How is it that I've been a tree for the last seven years and still know more about popular culture than you?"

"Because I'm not a nerd?" Percy suggested.

Looking him up and down, Thalia rolled her eyes. "But you are a dork. I mean, do you really think you're pulling off a tan-coloured coat with golden fur lining?"

"Do you think I give two shits? It's warm, it's comfortable, it's protective as fuck, and I look hella sexy." Percy shot back with a grin.

"Whatever you say ghost boy, now move your ass, I'm hungry." Thalia rolled her eyes, ruffling his hair as she sauntered past him.

"I could eat." Percy agreed as he too exited the train carriage and caught up with Thalia and the others. He really was hungry too, he had burned through a lot of energy in the Smithsonian. It was a downside of his abilities, he had a lot of firepower, but that fire had a cost.

Fortunately, with the sun rising and the heat of the day already starting to beam down on him, he could feel his energy levels rising.

Following the rest of the group as they walked away from the train and started down the path which led from the train station straight to a small town, which turned out to be Cloudcroft, New Mexico, Percy remained quiet. His mind was a muddled mess as he continued to ponder over what he had learned the night before, even as he refined the slowly forming plan in his head for what he wanted to do next.

At present, he was stuck thinking about two main issues. The first being that he still had to fulfil his contract with Hades. The god of the underworld was one god he definitely didn't want to piss off. At the same time though he didn't want to burn too many bridges with his current party, after all Thalia and Zoe were both powerhouses, and earning the favour of Artemis, and most likely Apollo too, by rescuing the Moon Goddess could be handy to have in the future as well?

"This is impossible. It is literally impossible for our train to have travelled this far in a single night." Bianca said suddenly, breaking Percy out of his thoughts as she stared up at the town sign, trying to work out as she did just how they could have crossed thousands of miles of land in just a single night.

"Don't hurt your brain thinking about it, gods will god." Thalia said dryly, rolling her eyes as she patted the younger girl on the back. "Most of them don't even know the meaning of the word subtle."

"Fred?" Bianca asked.

Thalia smiled.

Zoe nodded.

Phoebe scoffed.

Percy meanwhile blinked as he tuned back into the ongoing conversation, looked up at the sign and then scowled. "He could have dropped us off a bit closer to where we needed to go, couldn't he?"

"Don't be ungrateful," Thalia nudged him with her shoulder. "Besides, he's probably already helped us more than he should."

"Mayb-" Percy started to speak, before he heard a scream from down the street and froze, his gaze instantly focusing on the source. Five Sparti were making their way down the street, all five of them pulling out weapons as they stalked towards the group. "Ah, for fucks sake!"

"Damn it, how did they get here?" Thalia growled at the sight of them.

"Gods aren't the only ones that bend the rules," Phoebe answered, already nocking an arrow on her bow as she watched the group of skeletal warriors approach.

"Well shit," Percy summed up, the ring on his hand already changing form as he palmed his golden gladius and prepared for battle.

This was not how he was expecting his morning to go.

( - )

AN: So what did you think? More character focussed as we get to know people and interactions happen, but we're gonna be back into the action soon enough. I am hoping to finish the Titan's Curse arc in the next 3 chapters, so things will be escalating. I have some cool ideas for it that I want to explore, and cool ideas for after, after all this Percy is different than canon, and because of that things will go differently too, both in positive and negative ways! That and I am taking suggestions on possible pairings, I have some thoughts about what to angle for so I am throwing a vague none binding question out there to help me focus my thoughts and narrow down by choices. Who would you like to see in a pairing? It's an open question.

Either way I am looking forward to writing more of this. Hopefully you enjoyed reading it, or continue to do so. If not then please tell what you didn't like, or what you thought could have been done better? Please leave a review, comment etc. If you have any questions or suggestions feel free to PM me.

Also I am on a discord with a load of other writers, so if you fancy popping over to ask questions or offer suggestions about this story, or any of my other ones, or to find new authors you might not have come across yet, please feel free to use the link in my bio.

Thanks for reading, and I'll see you later.

Have a very merry Christmas for those that celebrate it, and a happy New Year!

Greed720.