Disclaimer: I only own the plot and my OCs. Anything you recognize as not mine belongs to Rick Riordan, Greco-Roman mythology, and/or their otherwise respective owners.

Author's Notes: Okay, so not gonna lie, this was one of the most fun chapters that I have written in awhile. Not to diss the other things that I have written or anything, lol, I just really enjoyed writing this one. :)

The violence does get real in this chapter, though, so keep that in mind.

As always, I hope you enjoy, too. Until the next chapter,

~TGWSI/Selene Borealis

~Say A Little Prayer~

~Chapter 3: The Hesperides & Ladon Get What They Deserve~

It took us just a few hours short of four days to get to Mount Tamalpais.

The train didn't have too many stops to make, I guess because it was a freight train. Luke had gotten us quite a bit of food from the camp store, so it wasn't like we went hungry. Those of us who weren't watch did sleep a lot, but that was only because there wasn't much else to do. Any waste was...erm, quickly disposed of.

When we got to Reno, it was the first time that we had properly been out in the sun in days, so we were all squinting and trying to shield our eyes. Miraculously, nobody saw us in the broad daylight as we got out of the train cart and made our way through the rail yard and to the parking lot. Luke picked out a rather unassuming car to break into there, using his powers as a son of Hermes, and soon enough he'd hot-wired the car and we were on our way.

We stopped at one of those 24/7 gyms in the city to take some showers and clean off all the grime and much we'd accumulated. Silena and Katie actually came in with me and Luke to the men's restroom, as I think we all were nervous about something happening to one or two of us while we were separated. Luke locked the door, which didn't even look like it should have been lockable, to the restroom, making sure that nobody would be able to come in and see them.

Unfortunately, there were only three showers in the men's room. Silena and Katie looked at each other, obviously debating if they should take one together.

I decided to just get it over with. "Me and Luke can shower together."

Silena was hesitant. "Are you sure, Percy?"

"Yeah, Totally." There was a lot more bravado in my voice than what I actually felt. After all, Luke and I had only been dating for about a week now, and most of that time, we hadn't spent one-on-one. Plus, there was my history to consider. But I pushed any and all thoughts about the latter aside for now. I grabbed him by the hand. "Come on, Luke."

"I can wait," he attempted to protest.

"I'd rather we just get out of here as fast as possible," I said.

We went into the alcove for our shower. I put my bag on the bench, opening it up for my toiletries and some fresh clothes. Luke turned around while I got out of my old clothes; I shoved them into a plastic bag, the kind that you got at the grocery store, that had been in the backpack along with my clothes. "Nice planning ahead," I commented.

"Thanks."

I stepped into the shower first, not bothering to turn it on and wait for the hot water to come out. Cold water had never bothered me that much; probably because I was a son of Poseidon.

The rustling of clothes and plastic told me that Luke was doing basically what I had. He cleared his throat once he was done. "Is it okay if I come in?"

"Yeah," I said. My voice was more uncertain now.

He stepped into the shower. I stared at his face and chest only, not daring myself to look any lower. He did the same.

A few minutes passed by, neither of us taking the initiative for anything.

"Is this still...?"

"I told you, it's okay," I reiterated.

It was like a spell had been broken. Luke handed me my shampoo, and I squirted some of the liquid out onto my hand before I gave him back the bottle – the shampoo was the kind that was at the camp store, as was my soap and conditioner. Thus, since he naturally had to use the same products as a year-rounder, there was no point in not sharing them. They were all made by the dryads at camp, and they smelled good. Like olive trees, honey, and goat's milk, even though the camp didn't have any goats. Or satyrs.

We turned our backs to each other to use the body wash. Luke also stepped out of the shower as he'd gotten rinsed off. Unlike me, he didn't have to use a shit ton of conditioner in order to get his hair somewhat compliant. When I had turned off the shower and willed myself dry, I found him in the alcove, already dressed.

"I wish I had the ability to do that," he said, although his back was turned.

"Well, pretty soon you might."

It took us over four hours of driving to get to Mount Tamalpais, including stops. As we got closer to our destination, I could see the mountain. There seemed to be this permanent cloud towards the top, swirling around it, never truly going away.

"That's the Mist," Luke said. He was driving; his hands were clenching the steering wheel so sightly, his knuckles were white. I was sitting in the front passenger's seat. "It's so thick up there, between hiding Ladon and hiding the Titans' palace, it's visible."

"Oh," I said. I wasn't sure of what else to say.

"It's also going to smell like cough drops, as we get closer," he added. "There's eucalyptus trees everywhere."

"The stuff koala bears eat?"

"And monsters. They love chewing the leaves. Especially dragons."

"Dragons chew eucalyptus leaves?"

"Believe me, you'll understand once we face Ladon."

I went silent at that, the reminder that this wouldn't be his first time facing off the beast, or the Hesperides.

When we got off the highway, the roads became narrower and narrower, until I thought that there was no way two cars could safely fit at the same time. They winded through the forests, up the sides of hills, around the edges of steep ravines, and into the wide open spaces of cliffs and grass and rock and fog. I rolled down the window at one point, and I realized that Luke was right; it really did smell like cough drops.

Luke parked in a parking lot not quite all the way up to the top of the mountain. He turned off the car and got out, closing the driver's door shut behind him.

At first, I had no idea how he did it, because in the blink of an eye, when I, too, got out of the car, he was right in front of me. My breath caught.

"Sorry," he murmured. "Super speed. One of my powers."

"'Sounds like you have a lot of them," I managed.

"More than most children of Hermes," he confirmed. He cupped my face with his hand. "Listen, Percy, if we don't succeed at this – "

"Don't say that."

"If we don't," he said anyways. "I just want you to know that...I just don't like you. I love you."

My breath was stolen again.

"I love you, too," I whispered.

He kissed me. It wasn't our second kiss, we'd shared a few more while we'd been at camp and then while Katie and Silena had been sleeping in the train cart, but with its passion, it might as well have been.

Silena was grinning at us when we pulled apart. Katie was staring off into the distance, presumably to give us our space.

"Alright, let's go," I said.

We didn't say much as we walked up the mountain, because Luke had told us we needed to avoid waking Ladon for as long as possible. I held onto his hand, tight, not willing to let him go until we reached the Garden.

We had to reach the Garden just at sunset, because otherwise we wouldn't be able to get in – which we did. The timing of everything that we'd done thus far had worked out in our favor.

If it hadn't been for the enormous dragon, the Garden would've been the most beautiful one that I'd ever seen. The grass shimmered with silvery evening light, and the flowers were such brilliant colors that they almost glowed in the dark. Stepping stones of polished black marble led around either side of a five-story-tall apple tree, every bough glittering with golden apples. Even before I smelled their fragrance, the most delicious I'd ever smelled, my mouth watered.

We were so close, it was almost laughable.

All we had to do was pick an apple each, take one bite, and –

– We would become immortal.

Except, besides the Hesperides themselves, there was a giant dragon in our way.

He was coiled around the tree, sleeping. I won't lie and say that he wasn't terrifying, because he was. His serpent's body was as thick as a booster rocket, glinting with coppery scales. He had more heads than I could count, as if a hundred deadly pythons had been fused together. They were laying in a spaghetti-like mound on the grass, all the eyes closed.

Luke sneered. It was a show of anger, in the face of his fear.

Pure, unadulterated fear.

Better than me, Silena, and Katie, he knew how much danger we were about to be in.

The shadows in front of us began to move. There was a beautiful, eerie singing, like voices from the bottom of a well. I reached for Riptide, but Luke shook his head at me.

"Not yet."

Four figures shimmered into existence, a set of sisters. They looked to be around the same age as us, with skin that was like caramel, silky black hair that tumbled loose around their shoulders, and black eyes that I can only describe as volcanic. Each of them wore an Ancient Greek white chiton with a golden girdle around the waist.

I wasn't deceived by their appearances. I knew that they were dangerous.

"Son of Hermes," the one who looked to be the eldest of them said coldly. "Did you not learn your lesson from the last time? Only two years have passed since your last attempt; you should have known better than to try again."

Luke gritted his teeth. "I've brought more friends this time.

"So we can see," another one said. "But that is foolish. What makes you think that they will not end up like the last one?"

"Why, you – " I started.

Silena stepped forwards and grabbed my hand at the last second, keeping me back.

"Go back, Son of Hermes, and his friend,"the third of the Hesperides said. "We can sense your intentions. We know that you have not come here because of a quest, or because a god or king told you to. What you are attempting is most unlawful, but you need not be punished more than necessary."

"Yeah, no thanks," I replied.

Then, I charged.

The Hesperides initially weren't as taken aback as I wanted them to be. I guess they had figured that Luke would've told us about how his first time here had gone, and they knew to expect for us to attack them alongside the dragon.

I went after the one the furthest from the right, and she summoned a dagger into her hand. Celestial bronze, with little black gems of some sort embedded into its hilt. She slashed it at me, but even as she moved, I remembered the sword lessons that Luke had taught me before I'd gone on my quest, the few that there'd been, and I realized something important:

She was pretty much just as inexperienced as I was.

I didn't really know why. I mean, she was a goddess who had lived for thousands of years. She was older than Western civilization itself. It didn't make sense for her to not be trained to a significant degree, unless –

– Either the Hesperides had relied too much on Ladon for their entire existences, or the Olympians had prohibited the Hesperides from practicing to fight on top of using their powers for one reason or another. Or both.

Probably both, in all likelihood.

And since she was just as inexperienced as I was, I planned accordingly. I had a longer blade, so I just needed to keep my distance.

I dodged the Hesperid easily. She came back around, glaring, but I dodged her that time, too. Then I made a hit of my own.

She cried out as my sword tore through her dress and her hip. I'd aimed to win, not to spar. Golden ichor bloomed on her chiton.

"La – !" I heard one of the other Hesperides begin to shout.

"Oh, no you don't," Katie then growled. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw some of her vines wrap around the Hesperid's arm. She pulled, and the goddess fell straight to the Earth, eating shit.

Silena and Luke went after the remaining two. I didn't see what they did, because my focus fell back on the Hesperid who I was fighting, who definitely looked like she wanted to kill me. Yet, I heard them and Katie shouting, and I thought it was a wonder that we weren't waking up the dragon.

Maybe he couldn't wake up, though, unless the Hesperides ordered him to.

If that was the case, we needed to keep them occupied or otherwise unable to call to him for as long as we could.

The Hesperid I was fighting certainly gave it her all, I will give her that. She got me in the shoulder, a light nick, which made me hiss. I got another slice on her calf, and she screamed once more. She had a limp now.

Unlike Luke, she had a lot of difficulty in hiding her fear. I don't think anybody else had come to her and her sisters' Garden before with enough people to evenly number them.

"La – " she huffed out. With her powers restricted, she wasn't that much more powerful than me. She was winded. "Lad – !"

"No!" I growled.

I charged her again. I had a bottle of water in the right back pocket of my shorts, because I'd wanted to come prepared. True, I hadn't had much time to get any dexterity with my powers.

But I was angry enough that it did the trick. As I thrusted my sword forwards, the tug from behind my navel exploded, as did the water bottle. I heard thecrack!of the plastic.

The Hesperid's eyes widened. She tried to stab her knife into my torso, but the water knocked it out of her hand.

Giving me the opportunity to run my sword through it.

It was my first time doing it to someone who looked completely human, and not at least partially a monster like Medusa. Yet even in the case of Medusa, that had been different. Her head had been obstructed, so I hadn't seen her face.

The Hesperid didn't shout, this time. She made a choked, gargled noise, which wasn't anything like they showed in the movies, and I thought was probably going to be in my nightmares later, as she stared down at my sword from where it was in her chest. Like she couldn't believe it had happened.

She fell to the ground. Not completely dead, since we gods –Titanesses like her included, because she wasn't a child of Kronos and Rhea, one of their descendants, or one of the genuine exceptions to that rule, like Aphrodite – can't really die. But she was incapacitated until her healing factor kicked in.

"Aegle!" the Hesperid that Katie was fighting screamed. She'd been forced down onto the ground by a bunch of vines.

Katie and I locked eyes. She looked kind of out of her wits. Shaken.

Still, she nodded.

I approached the restrained Hesperid. She started to thrash in the vines even more than she'd been already, and indeed managed to break some of them, which made Katie groan. The vines were attached to her, after all. But she persevered in maintaining her hold.

And with a swipe of my sword, I slit Katie's Hesperid's throat.

The sound of Silena's gasp made me whirl around. Her Hesperid had managed to stab her in the shoulder. She looked victorious.

Until she saw that two of her sisters were laying on the ground. Then her visage fell slack.

Katie and I didn't need to speak to each other. We'd never really done anything like this before, even on our quest, but it was like we knew what the other was thinking.

We ran at Silena's Hesperid. She tried to pull her dagger out of Silena's shoulder – but it was too deeply embedded. Terrified, she abandoned that course of action and tried to run.

She did not get very far.

Katie caught up to her and literally jumped her. The two of them tumbled onto the ground, the Titaness doing her best to leave Katie in the dirt. But Katie flipped them over so that the third of the sisters was on the ground, using her body weight to keep her there. "Hurry, Percy!" she shouted.

I moved around her and also slit this Hesperid's throat. Then, for good measure, after Katie got up, I stabbed her in the heart. I did it with the second one, too, when we went back to her.

That just left the last one. The eldest one.

My gaze fell on her and Luke. It was clear that she'd had more training than her sisters. The Titaness was parrying hit after hit that he attempted to make, focused more on defending herself than trying to attack him. She was trying to wear him out, a vicious sneer on her face.

It was working. I could see the sweat trickling down Luke's neck.

"Silena!" Katie exclaimed, rushing over to her.

"I'm okay," Silena panted. Blood was trailing past her fingers, which she'd placed over her wound. Katie crouched down next to her, naturally getting ready to help her take out the dagger so we could pour some nectar on it, but the daughter of Aphrodite shook her head. "Help Luke first! Please!"

Katie hesitated, but she got back to her feet. Together, we went after the last of the Hesperides.

She backed away from Luke, seeing that it was now three-against-one. "You do not fully understand what you are doing," she warned. "Even if you each are able to get one of the apples, what do you think will happen when you achieve immortality without the Olympian Council's permission? You will be exiles for the rest of your existences –if you are not thrown into Tartarus."

"We're not planning on being exiles," I said.

Now, I know, I know, it wasn't the best idea for me to.

But I couldn't help myself.

Her face paled. "No. You are not planning..."

She turned around, facing the tree in the center of the Garden. It was to her (temporary) doom, as it allowed Luke to literally stab her in the back before his sword went all of the way through.

And it was also potentially to our permanent dooms, too.

"Ladon!" she shouted. "Ladon, wake!"

The dragon stirred, glittering like a mountain of pennies. Every single one of his eyes opened as he lifted all of his heads, though he seemed dazed, like somebody who had woken up from a long nap.

"Oh, shit," Katie said.

"Go back to Silena," I said without looking at her. "Get both of you to safety, that knife out of her shoulder, and some nectar on her wound."

"Percy – "

"Just go!"

She ran.

"How did Hercules defeat Ladon in the myths?" I asked Luke.

He grimaced. "Do you mean how it was said he did it, or how he actually did it?"

The dragon was staring down at us and the Hesperides, but he didn't immediately attack – he was confused. Probably over why the Hesperides were laying on the ground, (again, temporarily) lifeless.

"Whichever one you think is best."

One of the dragon's heads moved down to sniff the body of the Hesperid the furthest away from us, by some stroke of luck.

"He was said to have killed him with a poisoned arrow to the heart."

The head shirked back. Its nostrils flared, as did the nostrils of all of Ladon's other heads.

"Shit!" I cursed. "Run!"

Luke went one way, and I went the other as Ladon opened all of his mouths toroar. The sound was ear-shattering.

That wasn't nearly as bad, however, as the smell coming from his mouth. It was like acid. It made my eyes burn, my skin crawl, and the hair all over my body stand on end. I remembered the time a rat had died inside our apartment wall in Manhattan in the middle of the summer. This stench was like that, except a hundred times stronger, and mixed with the smell of chewed eucalyptus.

I ducked behind a bunch of rocks at the edge of the Garden just as one of the heads snaked towards me. I became just out of Ladon's reach with the maneuver, and I heard him shriek with rage.

I could only hope that Luke had done something similar.

Think! I screamed at myself. Think, think,think!

Hercules was said to have killed Ladon long-rage. Whether he had really done it or not, there had to be some truth to the myth. Otherwise, it wouldn't have been passed down, because it wouldn't have made him sound cool enough.

Yet, I didn't have a poisoned arrow and a bow. And I definitely wasn't good enough at archery to have been successful at that trick, anyways.

I spared a glance from one side of the rocks. I didn't see Luke's broken or mangled body anywhere, so unless Ladon had eaten him or something – a thought that didn't bear thinking about, thus I was going with the alternative – that probably meant that he was alive. The dragon didn't seem very willing to leave the tree, as he hissed and roared and stomped at the ground; I guess he'd been well-trained. He wasn't going to be lured away from it even by the tasty prospect of eating some heroes.

But that did give us an advantage to killing him from a long-distance range, I thought.

I looked around at my surroundings. There was a long, skinny limb from a tree down about fifty feet away from me, down below. It looked like it was about nine feet long or so.

An idea started to form in my mind.

I took off for the tree limb. I nearly tripped over my own two feet a couple of times, but I was able to reach it with little hassle. Grabbing the limb, I climbed back up the mountain, panting harshly, but with adrenaline running through my veins, giving me the boost that I needed.

There could be no room for error. I put the tree limb behind those rocks, and I peered back over them. Some of Ladon's heads were waiting for me to make a move, and yet he seemed...bored. We must've not been the kind of fight that he was expecting.

I ran for it.

Ladon shifted when I came into his line of vision. I heard his heads hissing, and they made this strange sound, like he was getting ready to breathe fire at me and burn me to incineration.

Please! I thought. I did not pray to my dad or any of the other Olympians – why would I, when what I was doing was the beginning of an effort to overthrow them? But I did pray to some deity higher than them out there – e.g., Ananke. Don't get me wrong, I was mad at her for what had happened to my mom. But if I had gotten this far under her watch, I figured that my friends and I had to succeed. There was no other choice.

I reached the body of the Hesperid who was closest to me. Her eyes were glassy – her body hadn't regenerated enough for her to regain consciousness yet. Using my sword, I cut her girdle, which was really just a long rope, and pulled it away from her body with my left hand, and then I ran again for the rocks.

When I dove behind them, the feeling of the hair on the back of my neck being singed by het told me how close Ladon had gotten to killing me.

Swiftly, I grabbed the tree limb and got my sword into position. I tied Riptide to the wood with the golden rope, recalling a knot I had learned once at one of the several schools I'd been expelled from to do the trick. When I was done, I placed my palm on the flat of my sword, and pushed.

The blade moved, albeit not that much.

Good enough.

Another look past the rocks. Luke was still nowhere in sight.

I acted.

Ladon roared, and I ran like my life depended on it – because it did. The phrase "when your life flashes before your eyes" seemed to be true, as I saw flashes of everything that had happened since that day at the museum when Mrs. Dodds had attacked me.

Besides gaining Luke and my friends, I hadn't had a very happy past month-ish.

I hadn't had a very happy life before then, either.

But that was exactly why I was doing this now.

Somehow, I was able to get into position without being set on fire. I was still standing at the edges of the Garden, but I was standing in front of Ladon, in front of his chest. Every single one of his heads was glaring down at me. He bellowed with rage.

With a steeling of my breath, I threw Riptide, tied to that tree limb, for everything that I had. I didn't exactly think it was a whole lot; I'd never been in track as a kid, much less been a champion of it. I didn't have any practice with javelin throwing.

I backed up, watching. My sword flew through the air, flying and flying and flying. It wasn't laced with poison, like Hercules' arrow was said to have been. I knew that.

My heart leapt up, into my throat.

My aim was true. It was hard to believe; nevertheless, Isawhow my sword pierced the dragon's chest. His heads shrieked, and they stared down at his wound. Some of them reached for the tree limb poking out of his chest, as if getting ready to pull it out.

They didn't get the chance. Ladon seemed to collapse in on himself, like a black hole. His body got smaller and smaller. One by one, his heads began to shrivel and die. His cries got weaker and weaker. It turned out that there was some truth to the myth, like I'd expected.

In the end, there was nothing of him left. He was gone. The Hesperides were still temporarily down for the count.

The tree that they were supposed to have protected was completely unguarded, leaving each and every single one of its golden apples for the taking.

Word Count:4,514

Next Chapter Title: A Talk With God