Chapter Title: I Get Involved In A Major Brawl With A Familiar Ally Coming To Assist

Alternate Chapter Title: Foes New And Old, Part Two

This situation I find myself in.. ah.. how times really haven't fucking changed at all. I mean, to be fair, once upon a time I probably would have expected that once the war with Luke and Kronos ended, things might improve for demigods. Oh how wrong was I.

Almost a year after the war ended, here I am.. in another such dangerous situation. Only this time, I have to deal with Egyptian monsters in the mix of this clump of enemies sent to destroy us in this trap too. Yes, contrary to what many might expect — though I can imagine some would not find this surprising, since my encounter with that Egyptian demigod I encountered right after the end of the Second Titan War, I spent a chunk of my time bulking up on knowledge about ancient Egypt and the monsters from its mythology. That knowledge was serving me well today, since I instantly recognized the bizarre monsters that accompanied the more familiar foes that me, Michael, and Lavinia currently faced.

Those things were Serpopards, creatures of chaos. They may have had the body of a leopard and weren't entirely a snake, but don't be fooled — they were still very dangerous creatures just as much as the poisonous snakes were. These creatures just so happened to be tremendously strong and had the ability to shoot poison, just like the Basilisks, which came from the hair of one of the Giants — whose name eluded me at that moment.

Point is, I was well aware of just how dangerous Serpopards were, but if necessary, I would have no qualms about transforming into the Monster King just to take care of them. Either way, with the Serpopards, Basilisks, Laistrygonian Giants, Cyclopes, Zombies, plus the unknown brutes and the Earthborn here too, it was evident that at the very least, I might have to rely on some of the magic spells the Heralds taught me and Kayla to achieve victory. At least, the eidolon-possessed truck driver was driving off now, leaving us to what the monster believed to be our demise.

Oh, how naive that one was.

"Michael, Lavinia.. find cover.. now.." I quickly said to both of them.

"ARE YOU CRAZY?!" Lavinia shouted back.

"Lavinia, do what he says.. he's got this.." Michael said.

"But.. But.." Lavinia protested.

I heard some scuffling behind me - I was too busy keeping my eyes on my opponents, who stood there for now sizing me up from what it seemed - and from what it sounded like, despite having one hand holding the bag, Michael had used his other hand to grab Lavinia's hand and was now dragging her off to somewhere safe. Good, I thought to myself. Unless they get in trouble, I don't have to worry about them right now. So I'm free to concentrate fully on these enemies in front of me.

I grit my teeth and readied both of my swords, calling out, "Okay, buggers. Let's dance."

Just then, a fireball out of nowhere slammed into the group from above, incinerating the zombies and Basilisks on the roof of the gas station without setting it on fire. It was a fireball that came from only one person.

The sound of said person's voice a few moments later filled me with confidence as to how this fight would turn out.

"I do hope you enjoyed that, young master!"

I simply nodded in reply. Nice to see you too again, Cháris, I thought to myself as I watched the monsters all react to the sudden attack from above. The Serpopards shot their poison at Cháris, firing into the air, but from the lack of cries of pain, the fire herald was easily dodging their attacks. The three Earthborn now closed in on me, their rocks having now generated into what looked like swords carved out of rock.

I smirked.

Time to use some magic spells, I thought to myself and then thought of a single phrase.

Ramped Vortex.

At an instant, my body began emitting waves of visible orange light to a diameter of about three feet around me from my waistline. As to what was actually happening, it was simple. Ramped Vortex was a magic spell that once thought of, grants the user and their weapons with a temporary strength and power boost for about ten minutes with the added benefit of being invulnerable to poison attacks and the opponents in the vicinity suffering a twenty five percent loss in perception, meaning that to them, I would probably now be moving as if they themselves were lagging or had poor internet connection.

"What the hell..?" Lavinia called out from nearby. I wasn't looking at exactly where she and Michael were, but from how close her voice was, I could tell that both of them were not far off.

"I have no idea as to exactly what he is doing.." Michael muttered.

Yeah, I did realize now that a lot of this I would have to explain to everyone else later, but that could wait. Right now, it was monster — killing time. So without a second thought at all, I just lunged forward, and to the monsters, that decrease in perception and vision would be all that I needed. I was about to slice into the first Earthborn's waist while right beside it before it had tried to cut me open with its sword - at which where I had been right in front of it only seconds prior. I separated the first Earthborn in half, while parrying a strike from the Earthborn to its left which had managed to lock onto me despite the decrease in perception and vision. Leaving the first Earthborn to bleed out for now, I swung my free sword right at the bugger's head, decapitating the second Earthborn instantly. He fell to the ground with a thud as another fireball from Cháris burst in a explosion nearby and the Cyclopes started screaming as they burned to the death.

I dodged a couple of fireballs thrown at me from the Laistrygonian Giants rather easily, and while the third Earthborn seemed to be in shock from how easily I had dispatched its two comrades, I made a rush on the four Giants. One of the Serpopards shot poison at me, but I easily managed to get out of the way of the attack. While I was invulnerable to poison attacks right now sure, I still wanted to make sure that I wasn't hit by it, mind you. Either way, the four Giants despite their size didn't really stand much of a chance against me wielding Swords as much as they stood a chance against me back during the Battles of the Labyrinth and Manhattan armed with either an MG42, the Whitworth, or as the Monster King itself. The unknown brutes now charged me, with at least six of them now bearing down on myself as I prepared for this part of the fight.

I'll admit, I never had encountered these guys before so I didn't exactly know what to even expect from these spear and shield wielding seven foot brutes. Even so, I decided to use another magical spell just to make sure that this part of the fight, as one-sided and close to finishing as it was, didn't get out of hand. With the six of them now only 25 yards away from me, I just thought to myself simply, Freeze Prison.

All six of them a second later suddenly froze mid-charge, unable to move.

"What the...?!" shouted one of them.

"What is this sorcery?! Face us like a man, cowardly Greek!" another shouted.

I smirked, and then without a second thought, sliced all six of the immobilized brutes to bits, dodging a couple more poison attack from the Serpopards while doing so. With the brutes dead, I now turned my attention to these remaining monsters. There were at least three of them here, with Cháris keeping two of them occupied and the last one with its attention on me.

I knew full well just from looking at them that I had to be careful when taking on these things, and not just because of the poison attacks. They had claws and sharp teeth, and.. did I mention that these things also happened to be tremendously strong too?

So yeah, I really did have to very careful when facing down these kinds of creatures. Just because you are the Monster King doesn't mean that you can be brazenly aggressive with no regard to your survivability. Even with the benefits of being semi-immortal due to being made a hunter of Artemis alongside Luke, this still applied. I would have to fight these things about as cautiously as any other demigod would. Fortunately for me, I also had magic.

So, in case you had already guessed what I was about to do, I simply looked at the Serpopard and thought another phrase in my head, Mist World. The Serpopard, now all of a sudden, started looking left and right dazed and confused as if everything had just gone haywire in its sense of vision. What had actually happened was that I had cursed it with a sense of blindness, in that its vision was now cursed to seeing so much mist and fog where there was none that it couldn't see any more than a few inches in front of its face, perfect for someone trying to sneak up and ambush them from behind.

With the effect in place, I quickly rushed around its flank and approached the beast from behind, quickly decapitating the beast of controlled chaos instantly. The other two Serpopards, upon seeing me do this, now decided to flee the battlefield and run off scared for their lives, leaving possession of the battlefield to me and my quest-mates.

Michael and Lavinia now walked over to me, coming out from behind a garbage bin that had been nearby. Lavinia, though, stopped dead in her tracks for some reason, looking at something behind from what it looked. The glint of fire in her eyes clued me in to exactly why she had even done it.

"Relax.." Michael muttered. "Lavinia, he's friendly."

"He's a herald of the Monster King.." she said.

"..He's on our side, due to his loyalty being toward Colton.. and Kayla.." Michael muttered again, looking a bit sad for a couple of seconds, no doubt because he missed the Apollo Cabin. To be fair, I didn't blame him. I missed Kayla greatly right now, even with me being able to telepathically communicate with her. Look, don't get me wrong, I knew what I had to do right now in order to save Camp Jupiter, but deep down inside, it still felt awkward doing a quest like this without her, even if I did have Michael with me on this.

"Michael Yew speaks the truth, child.." Cháris said from behind me. "..you have no reason to be afraid of me, for as long as the young masters' loyalty is to the Olympians.." He said the last word of that part with a little bit of frustration, which was understandable. "..the loyalty of the minions of the Monster King and Queen will also be to the Olympians."

Lavinia, who by now was chewing on some bubble gum again, simply nodded. After finishing chewing on bubble gum until she calmed down, she simply muttered, "That's a relief." You could tell that she was still very nervous about Cháris though, even if she was starting, at least if you looked at her eyes, to not see him as a threat.

I turned around now to face Cháris. "It's nice to see you again, my friend.." I said to him.

"As it to you, young master.." Cháris said back, bowing at my feet, flames flickering off of him in a controlled manner as per usual. "..Kayla informed me of what you had said to her, and so I set off to find you. I simply followed your demigod scent to here, just in time it seems too."

"Yeah.. apologies for getting into this situation in the first place.." I muttered to him. "I should have known that the truck driver was possessed by an Eidolon."

"Happens to the best of us no matter how hard we try sometimes, young master.." Cháris simply replied back. "Do not feel too bad about it at all. Anyways, your forces are currently in the process of mobilizing and will be sent towards Camp Jupiter as soon as possible. We are doing everything possible to expedite the process, young master."

"I don't doubt it at all.." I said back to him. "..believe me, I sense that this battle will be very crucial to the successful fulfillment of the Great Prophecy. I do sense that Camp Jupiter will play as much of a role in the Great Prophecy as Camp Half Blood will."

I wasn't really kidding much on that at all. Once I had regained my memories, I instantly had a gut feeling that a couple of members that would be crucial to the Great Prophecy were already among those who were in Camp Jupiter's ranks prior to the arrival of me, Percy, Luke, and Michael. The meeting this morning prior to me, Michael, and Lavinia departing on our quest had only strengthened this feeling that I had. Like it or not, by this point, I was certain that victory against Gaea and her forces, not to mention Porphyrion and his rogue faction, would depend on the help of Camp Jupiter as much as it would on the rest of Camp Half Blood, my followers as the Monster King, and probably - as useless as lots of them have been - the Gods as well.

Cháris put his hand on my right shoulder, and although my shoulder grew warm, I wasn't getting set on fire. "I will keep this in mind going forward.. however, I believe that you should know.. the Romans do not think of the Monster King and us favorably due to the actions of past Monster Kings against Rome, some of which all of us including me have taken a part in.." he said, and when I thought about it, it made total sense.

That was probably the reason why all of the Romans, including Lavinia, trembled at the mention of the Monster King. I mean, it made absolutely perfect sense when you thought about it. What it didn't explain however, was why Octavian was trembling and scared every time he looked at me for the most part even while I was amnesiac. It still didn't make any sense at all.

The sound of Michael piping up behind him, however, shook me from my thoughts. "Hey uh.." he muttered. "I don't mean to interrupt the reunion here.."

I turned around. He was holding his stomach, and I could hear rumbles coming from it. "..but I'm hungry.. and I would like to eat.." he continued. Lavinia simply nodded in agreement.

I looked at the sky.

It was late afternoon by now.

And since we didn't have any transportation as of now, it was likely that we would all have to wait until another vehicle came along. I turned to Cháris again. "Find us another vehicle that we can use to head towards the Tehachapi Mountains.." I told him. "..don't make it obvious that you are more than you appear." I was about to ask him to give us some cash so that could buy some food, but then again - noticing that the doors to the gas station were wide open and no other cars were in the parking lot, I think it was safe to say that the owner might have been a clear sighted mortal that panicked at what was happening and got the hell out of dodge.

"And get us some sleeping bags too.." I finished, and Cháris simply nodded.

"It will be done, young master.." he said. "..your requested items shall be brought back as soon as I can."

With that, he disappeared in a ball of fire. I turned back to the freeway and the road that led to and past the gas station. Despite some cars seemingly running out of gas on the freeway, thus leading to other cars having to pick up passengers and then eventually tow trucks coming to haul cars away, no cars were bothering to stop at the gas station - which suggested that a similar effect to what Hecate had done last year at the Battle of Manhattan was likely in effect for this gas station too.

And at that, I looked at Michael and Lavinia, who looked at me expectantly. "Gas station is deserted and wide open, so eat up.. don't go overboard with it though and make sure to clean up after yourselves.." I muttered, taking the bag from Michael. Both of them looked at each other for a moment before running into the gas station as if they were two kids drawn to a candy shop.

I sighed.

It was definitely time to talk to Kayla again, and at least for now until I had more time, leave out the part about the Serpopards. So I just said in my mind, Kayla - are you there?

A few moments passed before I heard her voice in my head. Yeah Colton.. I'm here. How's the quest going?

Going about as typical for demigods as you might expect, I replied. Already just fought our way - I did the legwork, mind you - out of one trap designed to kill us.

Oh my god! She said back. Are you okay?

I'm fine, I'm fine.. I literally steamrolled like the bulk of an entire Roman cohort yesterday, so of course I came through this ambush okay.. I told her, and she sighed. Plus, Cháris found us and helped out too.

That is very good to know indeed, she said though it sounded like she was hiding something from me, which of course made me a bit curious.

Is there anything from Camp Half Blood that I would like to know about, my dear sweetheart? I asked her, and she giggled for a moment before turning serious again. She sighed once more before saying what she said next.

Remember what I said about Leo earlier?

Yeah, why?

She took another deep breath. There's a part about him I left out because I knew how you mostly likely would react to it, she said and I was concerned for a moment. But here it goes. While we were heading back to Camp Half Blood from the Grand Canyon, he had the gall to ask me out when he had already been told by Butch that you were my boyfriend.

I.

Was.

Seeing.

Red.

I was pissed off greatly by that revelation, and for good reason. I had literally made the attempts by high-class arrogant rich guys to take away my girlfriend to stop - and then by arrogant high school kids too - only to now learn that a fucking elf latino kid had tried to do it too - when he already knew that I was Kayla's boyfriend.. it made me want to scream. I held it inside myself though, because this was Kayla that I was talking to. There was no way in hell I was going to damage my relationship with her in any way.

I still had those memories of Lee and the other psychopaths in the Apollo Cabin giving me the talk the day after me and Kayla hooked up, even now.

But seriously, Leo Valdez was now on thin ice with me because of this and I immediately made it known to Kayla.

If he does that again, then regardless of what anyone says, I will be burying him alive in Tartarus, I said.

Kayla just chuckled. I mean, he already is scared out of his damn mind about you - especially since Clarisse convinced everyone to let you punish him when you both meet eventually, she said back and I couldn't really help but chuckle inside too.

That's my sister for you honestly. But even so, the kid definitely was going to pay a little for asking out Kayla when he knew that I was her boyfriend. If not being buried alive in Tartarus, he still was going to learn at least in a certain, brutal fashion that you don't try ripping Kayla away from me at all. That was for sure.

I did also punch him in the face when he did, Kayla continued and if I was chuckling inside before, I was full on laughing internally out of pride now. I was really proud of my girlfriend, believe me.

Gods, you make me crave you so much that I must be in Elysium or something, I said to her and she giggled again. After a while, like before, she again grew serious. So what now, since your truck driver drove you into a trap?

As of right now, we're simply going to wait inside the gas station. Seems to be a sub-conscious turn away-like spell going on in the area, much like the one Kronos and Hecate used on Manhattan last year, albeit on a much, much smaller scale, I replied. I sent Cháris to get us sleeping bags and a new ride, since the gas station is deserted. There was one car other than the truck here earlier, but it's gone now. Guessing the owner was a clear sighted mortal who panicked when the fight started and got the heck out of dodge.

Fair enough, she replied. You still got time to make it there. How many miles are you from Bakersfield then?

At least about 160 miles - close to that, I muttered. Then it's about a couple dozen more miles to wherever the sword of Jupiter is. I'm still not sure of the exact location as of yet to be completely honest here with you.

Well, I know you'll figure it out.. and you have Michael too.. so even with the new girl Lavinia with you, I have faith in both of you, she said and that made me smile a lot. Then, my stomach rumbled too and that dampened the mood. I had to eat too, and besides it was getting later in the day too.

Well, I'm hungry now so I'll have to end this chat here to eat, I said to her. I'll try to stay safe and make it out of this alive - so I can get back to you. I miss you so much it pains me to be this far from you.

Aww.. I feel the exact same way as you, Colton, she said back. I miss you so much too. I love you so much.

I love you too, Kay.. I said to her. Bye.

Bye.

Ending that telepathic chat, I simply walked on into the gas station, knowing for a fact that I had some more thinking to do, a whole lot more thinking to do to be exact. After first eating, of course. Either way, we had managed to cover a lot of ground on the first day of this quest, that was for sure. So if I had to be honest, I was feeling at least very good about this quest indeed, regardless of the implications that the appearances of the Serpopards and those unknown seven foot brutes brought to the situation confronting us.

Little did I realize just what the scope of the implications I had encountered here would mean down the road.