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: Hi, everyone! Welcome back! Exciting news that I noticed (as I am very unobservant irl haha): this fic has now reached over 500 kudos on AO3! Thank y'all so much to those who gave it and again to those who have been reading in general. It means a lot to me. :)

Also, just as a general comment to once again demonstrate how big this fic is now: the document this entire fic is on is now over 500 pages! Like the place for A/N's that I put even in my documents is at page 530 rn. Holy shit, that's a lot!

Anyways, as always, I hope you enjoy. Until the next chapter,

~TGWSI/Selene Borealis


~The Finding Home Saga~

~Finding Home~

~Chapter 61: We Break A Few Rocket Ships~


I tore across the Mall, not daring to look behind me. I bursted my way into the Air and Space Museum, running past the admissions area, which caused a lot of commotion but I didn't care about that. Thanks to being a half-blood and having to be used to the possibility of monsters attacking me, even when I was wearing my ἒνδεσμα, I was more than able to leave all the security guards heading after me in the dust.

The main part of the museum was one huge room with rockets and airplanes hanging from the ceiling. Three levels of balconies curled around, so you could look at the exhibits from all different heights. The place wasn't crowded, just a few families and a couple of tour groups of kids, probably doing one of those holiday school trips. I wanted to yell at them all to leave, but I figured that would only increase my now already-high chances of getting arrested. I had to find Thalia and Katie and the Hunters. Any minute, the skeleton dudes were going to invade the museum, and I didn't think they would settle for an audio tour.

I ran into Thalia – literally. I was barreling up the ramp to the top-floor balcony and slammed into her, knocking her into an Apollo space capsule.

Katie yelped in surprise.

Before I could regain my balance, Zoë and Iphigenia had arrows notched, aimed at my head. Their bows had just appeared out of nowhere.

When Zoë realized who I was, she didn't seem anxious to lower her bow. She was seething. "You! I knew someone was following us! How dare you show thy face here?"

"Percy!" Katie said, looking relieved. "Thank goodness you're here!" Zoë glared at her for it, but she wasn't fazed. I was thankful that at least one of them was thankful, even if it was only her.

"Luke," I said, trying to catch my breath. "He's here."

The anger in Thalia's eyes immediately melted, which made me feel a little bit uncomfortable, but whatever. She put her hand on her silver bracelet. "Where?"

I told them about the Natural History Museum, Dr. Thorn, Luke, and the General.

"The General is here?" Zoë looked stunned. "That is impossible! You lie."

"Why would I lie? Look, there's no time. The skeleton warriors already have your scent and – "

"What?" Thalia demanded. "How many?"

"Twelve," I said. "And that's not all. That guy, the General, he said he was sending something, a 'playmate,' to distract you over here. A monster."

Thalia and Katie exchanged looks.

"I was trying to figure out where Artemis had gone. Trees don't have eyes, but they were pretty sure that she came here," Katie said. "Some powerful monster scent...she most've stopped here to look for the mystery monster. But we haven't found anything yet."

"Zoë," Iphigenia said, looking at the other Hunter. "If it is the General..."

"It cannot be!" Zoë snapped. "The boy must have seen an Iris-Message or some other illusion."

"Iris-Messages don't crack marble floors," I told her.

Zoë took in a deep breath, trying to calm herself. I didn't know why she was taking it so personally, or how she knew this General guy, but I figured now wasn't the time to ask. "If Percy is telling the truth about the skeleton warriors," she said, "we have no time to argue, especially if they have my scent. They are the worst, most horrible...we must leave now."

"Good idea," I said.

"I was not including thee, boy," Zoë retorted, her rage quickly returning. "You are not part of this quest!"

"Hey, I'm trying to save your lives!"

"You shouldn't have come, Percy," Thalia said grimly. "But you're here now. Come on. Let's go back to the van."

"That is not thy decision!" Zoë argued.

Thalia scowled at her. "You're not the boss here, Zoë. I don't care how old you are! You're still a conceited little brat!"

"You never had any wisdom when it came to boys," Zoë growled. "You never could leave them behind!"

Thalia looked like she was about to hit Zoë. Then everyone froze, and I heard a growl so loud I thought one of the rocket engines was starting up.

Below us, a few adults screamed. A little kid's voice screeched with delight: "Kitty!"

Something enormous bounded up the ramp. It was the size of a pickup truck, with silver claws and golden glittering fur. Even without ever having seen it before, I knew what it had to be.

"The Nemean Lion," Thalia said. "Don't move."

The lion roared so loud it parted my hair. Its fangs gleamed like stainless steel.

"Separate on my mark," Zoë said. "Try to keep it distracted."

"Until when?" Katie asked.

"Until I think of a way to kill it. Go!"

I uncapped Riptide and rolled to the left. Arrows whistled past me, and Katie started to grow the vines out of her arms. I turned and saw Zoë and Iphigenia climbing the Apollo capsule. They were firing arrows, one after another, all shattering harmlessly against the lion's metallic fur. The lion swiped the capsule and tipped it on its side, spilling the Hunters off the back. Katie was able to wrap some vines on its legs, trying to bring it down from under itself, but the lion snapped the vines easily, and turned around to face her. But Thalia stepped into its path, holding up Aegis, and the lion recoiled. "ROOOAAAR!"

"Hi-yah!" Thalia shouted. "Back!"

The lion growled and clawed the air, but it retreated as if the shield was a blazing fire.

For a second, I thought that Thalia had it under control. Then I saw the lion crouching, its leg muscles tensing. I'd see enough cat fights in alleys around my apartment in New York. I knew that the lion was going to pounce.

"Hey!" I yelled. To this day, I don't know what I was thinking, but I charged the beast. Well, no, I do know what I was thinking: I just wanted to get it away from my friends. I slashed with Riptide, a good strike to the flank that should've cut the monster into Meow Mix, but the blade just clanged against its fur in a burst of sparks.

The lion raked me with its claws, ripping off a chunk of the jacket I'd stolen. I backed against the railing. It sprang at me, one thousand pounds of monster, and I had no choice but to turn and jump.

I landed on the wing of an old-fashioned silver airplane, which pitched and almost spilled me to the floor, three stories below.

An arrow whizzed past my head. The lion jumped onto the aircraft, and the cords holding the plane began to groan.

The lion swiped at me, and I dropped onto the next exhibit, a weird-looking spacecraft with blades like a helicopter. I looked up and saw the lion roar – inside its maw was a pink tongue and throat.

Jackpot.

Its fur was completely invulnerable, but it didn't look like its mouth was. If I could strike it there...my only problem was, the monster moved too quickly. Between its claws and fangs, I couldn't get close without getting sliced into pieces.

"Zoë!" I called out. "Target the mouth!"

The monster lunged. An arrow zipped past it, missing it completely, and I dropped from the spaceship onto the top of a floor exhibit, a huge model of the Earth. I slid down Russia and dropped off the equator.

The Nemean Lion growled and steadied itself on the spacecraft, but its weight was too much. One of the cords snapped. As the display swung down like a pendulum, the lion leaped off onto the model Earth's North Pole.

"Katie!" I yelled. "Clear the area!"

Katie didn't need to be told twice. Groups of kids were running around screaming. She started to corral them away from the monster just as the other cord on the spaceship snapped and the exhibit crashed to the floor. Thalia dropped off the second-floor railing and landed across from me, on the other side of the globe. The lion regarded us both, trying to decide which one of us to kill first.

Zoë and Iphigenia were above us, bows ready, but they kept having to move around to get a good angle.

"No clear shot!" Zoë shouted. "Get it to open its mouth more!'

The lion snarled from the top of the globe.

I looked around. Options. I needed...

The gift shop. I had a vague memory from my trip here as a little kid. Something I'd made my mom buy me, and I'd regretted it. If they still sold that stuff...

"Thalia," I said. "Keep the lion occupied."

She nodded grimly.

"Hi-yah!" She pointed her spear and a spidery arc of blue electricity shot out, zapping the lion in the tail.

"ROOOOOOOAR!" The lion turned around and pounced. Thalia rolled out of its way, holding up Aegis to keep the monster at bay, and I ran for the gift shop.

"There is no time for souvenirs, boy!" Zoë screamed.

I ignored her and dashed into the shop, knocking over rows of t-shirts, jumping over tables full of glow-in-the-dark planets and space ooze. The sales lady didn't protest. She was too busy cowering behind her cash register.

There! On the far wall – glittery silver packets. Whole racks of them. I scooped up every kind that I could find and ran out of the shop with an armful.

Zoë and Iphigenia were still showering arrows at the monster, but it was no good. The lion seemed to know better than to open its mouth too much. It snapped at Thalia, slashing with its claws. It even kept its eyes narrowed to tiny slits.

Thalia jabbed at the monster and backed up. The lion pressed her.

"Percy," she called, voice higher than usual, "whatever you're going to do – "

The lion roared and swatted her like a cat toy, sending her flying into the side of a Titan rocket. Her head hit the metal and she slid to the floor.

"Hey!" I shouted at the lion. I was too far away to strike, so I took a risk: I hurled Riptide like a throwing knife. It bounced off of the lion's side, but that was enough to get the monster's attention. It turned towards me and snarled.

There was only one way to get close enough. I charged, and as the lion leaped to intercept me, I chunked a space food pouch into its maw – a chunk of cellophane-wrapped, freeze-dried strawberry parfait.

The lion's eyes got wide and it gagged like a cat with a hairball.

I couldn't blame it. I remembered feeling the same way when I'd tried to eat space food as a kid. The stuff was just plain nasty.

"Zoë, get ready!" I ordered her.

Behind me, I could hear people screaming. Katie was using her vines to latch onto kids and pull them back before they got too close.

I scrambled away from the lion. It managed to choke down the space food packet and looked at me with pure hatred.

"Snack time!" I yelled.

It made the mistake of yelling at me, and I got an ice-cream sandwich in its throat. Fortunately, I had always been a pretty good pitcher, even though baseball wasn't my game. Before the lion could stop gagging, I threw two more flavors of ice-cream and a freeze-dried spaghetti dinner into its mouth.

The lion's eyes bugged out. It opened its mouth and reared up on its back paws, trying to get away from me.

This was it. "Now!"

Immediately, arrows pierced the lion's maw – two, four, six. The lion thrashed wildly, turned, and fell backwards. And then it was still.

Alarms wailed throughout the museum. People were flocking to the exits. Security guards had long-forgotten about me and were running around in a panic with no idea of what was going on or what to do.

Katie knelt at Thalia's side and helped her up. She seemed okay, just a little dazed. Zoë and Iphigenia dropped from the balcony and landed next to me.

Zoë eyed me cautiously. "That was...an interesting strategy."

"Hey, it worked."

She didn't argue.

The lion seemed to be melting, the way dead monsters do sometimes in lieu of exploding into dust, until there was nothing left but its glittering fur coat, and even that seemed to be shrinking to the size of a normal lion's pelt.

"Take it," Zoë told me.

I stared at her. "What, the lion's fur? Isn't that like, an animal rights violation or something?"

"It is a spoil of war," she informed me, like I didn't already know. "It is rightly thine."

"You killed it," I pointed out, which was exactly the reason why I didn't want to take it.

But she shook her head, almost smiling. "I think thy ice-cream sandwich did that. Fair is fair, Percy Jackson. Take the fur."

I lifted it up; it was surprisingly light. The fur was smooth and soft. It didn't feel at all like something that would stop a blade. As I watched, the pelt shifted and changed into a coat – a full-length golden-brown duster.

"Not exactly to my style," I murmured.

"We have to get out of here," Katie said. "The security guards and everyone else won't be overly-panicked because of the Mist for long."

She was right – but for more reasons than just that one.

Through the glass walls of the museum, I could see a group of men walking across the lawn. Grey men in grey camouflage outfits. They were too far away for us to see their eyes, but I could feel their gaze aimed straight at us – straight at Zoë.

I hadn't forgotten about the zombies, rest assured. I'd been busy, but I hadn't forgotten about them. I wondered why they hadn't been sic'ed on us until now. Did the General think that the Nemean Lion would have killed the Hunters, Thalia, and Bianca? That didn't make much sense. He'd called it a "playmate." That implied that it had been sent to distract them, like he'd said, not outright kill them.

Whatever. I would think about it later.

"You guys need to get out of here; they have your scent, Zoë," I informed the others. I tightened my grip on Riptide. "I'll keep them distracted."

"No," Zoë said. "We'll go together."

Once again, I stared at her. "But, you said – "

"You are part of this quest now," Zoë said grudgingly. "I do not like it, but there is no changing fate. You are the fifth quest member. And we are not leaving anyone behind."


If you thought that things couldn't get any worse from here, then you would be wrong.

We ran out one of the back entrances of the museum, running as fast as we could possibly go.

"Where are we going?" Katie shouted. "The van is back there!" She pointed her thumb behind us for emphasis.

"We must confuse the Spartoi first!" Zoë shouted back. "Route them away from the van!" The way she said "van," it obviously didn't belong in her mouth. "Iphigenia and I have fought these vermin before! We know what to do!"

We tore down the streets of Washington DC much to the displeasure of several drivers, who honked their cars at us incessantly. I wondered what they thought of us as they saw us through the Mist, and what they were going to think of the Spartoi – as they were apparently called – when they saw them. I had a feeling that, as things often were when it came to dealing with monsters, they wouldn't be seeing us in a favorable light. Figures.

We didn't stop running until we'd gone under the I-395 – which, I don't know how much you know about Washington DC, dear reader, but that is a lot of running to be doing at a near-sprint. Zoë and Iphigenia didn't seem to have any problems with it, but even for demigods, it was some strenuous stuff for Thalia, Katie, and I.

We came to a stop at the Jefferson Field, which was surrounded by houses on one side, some fancy-looking buildings on another, and what looked to be some sort of fancy school on the other side of the field, definitely one that my mother couldn't ever hope to afford.

"We will stop and rest and give you a few minutes," Zoë told me, Katie, and Thalia. "Provided that the Spartoi do not catch up to us."

"'A few minutes,'" I quoted, panting. "Are they really that fast?"

She pursed her lips. "They can be. They are the creatures that came out from the ground when Cadmus sowed the teeth of the dragon sacred to Ares many millennia ago and helped him build the city of Thebes. It is to our advantage that there are twelve of them; they are known to fight each other in large numbers. They themselves are the only things that can kill each other, besides a child of Hades. Perhaps they will do that." She didn't sound very optimistic about our chances in that regard.

Thalia huffed and puffed. "Bet you're wishing you took Bianca on this quest instead of agreeing to let me come, aren't you?"

Zoë didn't answer her.

Katie and I were mostly recovered after a few minutes. My mouth tasted like blood in that way it did when you extended yourself just a bit too much for comfort, but it was bearable. Thalia was still struggling a little, which surprised me, but I didn't question it. Mainly because I couldn't.

All at once, Zoë's and Iphigenia's backs straightened. They turned to look behind us, their bows and arrows appearing out of thin air.

"What?" I asked. "Is it the Spartoi? Do we need to go back to running?"

But, no. After a split second, I could see that my assumptions were wrong. There were a bunch of mortals running away from where we had come, waving their arms and screaming. They were even getting out of their cars. Something told me that that wasn't the Spartoi.

When they got close enough, I saw a glimmer of golden-brown the same color as my coat. I could tell from a distance that their stripes were gone, faded, and that they were a lot bigger than before. They must've grown up really quickly due to the blood or something.

"The saber-toothed tigers," Zoë stated, her tone grim. She was already notching an arrow.

"What about these guys?" I asked nervously. "Have you fought them before?"

"No," she said.

Well...that was reassuring.

"Why are they coming after us?" Thalia demanded.

I shrugged. I had no idea. The General had ordered them to be discarded, so I didn't think that they'd had the opportunity to catch our scents. But if they had, maybe they were trying to prove their worth to him? Were saber-toothed tigers even that sentient?

Zoë let loose the arrow that she'd notched. It was hard for me to see it when it flew because of how small it was, but I could just make out the glimmer of silver as it sped past the mortals, miraculously in some cases, and towards the pack of saber-toothed tigers seventy yards away. I saw a spurt of red, and then one of the saber-toothed tigers fell. Presumably, the arrow had gone straight through its body at that kind of speed, killing it. But there were still eleven more to go.

...No, wait, there were ten. What had happened to the other one?

Iphigenia shot an arrow herself, which whizzed in the air. Zoë shot another one at the same time as her. "You three should go," she told the rest of us.

"What? No!" Thalia protested. "This is a quest! We need to stick together!"

"These beasts are not monsters. We have not hunted them before, but we know what to do," Zoë responded. She temporarily looked away from the tigers, getting closer and closer at a much faster speed than somebody running. In a few seconds, they would be upon us. "Go back to the van! Iphigenia and I will catch up you!"

I could tell that Zoë meant what she said. After all, I had seen a tiger's pelt in Artemis' tent. I didn't want to leave her behind to face the Spartoi if they were coming right after the saber-toothed tigers, but she'd said she'd fought them before and that was the only reason why we'd been running this far.

I decided to take the chance and trust her and Iphigenia, even though splitting up had never produced us good results before. Grabbing Thalia by the arm, I started to run towards the spot of green to our right, behind the Jefferson Field. Katie followed after me. "Meet you back at the van!" I called out to the two Hunters. I saw them nod.

"Percy, let me go!" Thalia growled at me. "We can't just leave them – !"

But I didn't. My grip on her remained iron-tight all the way back to the van.


Word Count: 3,566

Next Chapter Title: Midnight Train To I Have No Idea Where