Percy had never felt love for coffee before this moment.

He had been outrageously ADHD his entire life, and often couldn't calm himself down. Drinking coffee would be like committing suicide via jitters, and he had stayed away from it for as long as he possibly could.

But at the moment Percy hadn't slept in three days, and he was thanking the gods that the heavenly substance existed.

He was stuck in the unenviable position of being the head of what was now the largest criminal organization in the city — even if not by much — without a single person he trusted below him.

Sure he had good people that worked for him, but nobody he truly trusted to do a good job or to not betray him.

This was all a side effect of having been in the criminal underworld, and this entire universe in general, for less than a month.

At this point he was ready to throw it at someone and just take enough money to live comfortably every month. Who cares if they lost most of it, he'd still have more money than he could use.

He also had a bunch of rival gangs to meet with and assure that he wasn't going on some warpath. The only reason gangs weren't much, much bigger was because together they had uniformly decided not to let any one gang become too powerful. There were dozens of them in the relatively small city, and they were all about as powerful as a local drug racket would be in New York. He hadn't quite threatened that status quo, considering he was just barely ahead of the next most powerful, and he had some pretty good justification — or so everyone thought — but it still had everyone around him on edge.

He had gone to enforce his new rule personally multiple times in the last 72 hours. Since he had nobody to replace himself as the chief enforcer, he managed all the new members personally, as well as their assignments and shifts. For someone that not only hated paperwork but wasn't used to it, it was pure torture. His dyslexia wasn't helping, either.

Finally though, he would soon be able to sleep. He would still have problems to take care of, but come the morning he would be better prepared to deal with them and well rest—

His scroll buzzed on his desk, and Percy sighed as he checked it. It would likely be another skirmish he had to come intervene in. Multiple times had other neighboring gangs attempted to take the Blue Wolves territory for themselves. Percy had to personally dissuade them of that.

Percy raised an eyebrow when he saw that it was Qrow instead.

Opening the message, he began to read.

Hey kid, I hate to ask this but I have an old friend in the area who's in a bit of a tough situation. You think you can help him out?

Percy groaned and let his head hit his new fancy desk.

Picking up his scroll, Percy typed a return message.

I might be able to. Depends what kind of tough situation.

Percy stared at the message app for a moment before the app told him Qrow was typing back.

The deadly kind. He's a huntsman. He's about twenty miles north of Windpath at this point, and bleeding. He could survive, but I'm not confident in his ability to get to the city without bleeding out, and staying out in a grimm infested forest while you're injured is bound to get you killed too.

You want me to go get him?

You know I wouldn't ask this if I had a choice. Oum knows I'd love to lord my favor over you until the day I die, but he needs help and I don't have anyone else I trust in the area.

Aww, you trust me? Do you mean it?

I'm being serious here Percy.

Fine. I'm on my way.

Thanks. I owe you one. I'll send the coordinates to your scroll.

Don't worry about it. What are friends for?

Percy stood up, resigned to being awake for a while longer.

He could walk of course, but after being awake for so long the last thing he wanted to do was spend a couple hours jogging into a grimm infested forest and then jogging back with a full grown man and all of his supplies on his back.

Plus, now he was a big shot crime lord. He was nothing compared to even the smallest family in Mistral of course, but for the city of Windpath he was a pretty big deal— the biggest deal, even. That was a pretty shocking realization. He now had more hand in how the city was run than any other one person. He'd have to use that for good… somehow.

Either way, he had access to things others didn't. That meant that if he asked for a bullhead to head out into the middle of the wilderness, there were very few people likely to tell him no.

Which is exactly what he decided to do.

Percy walked out of his office and over to an elevator to head to the ground floor. He had taken the Blue Wolves headquarters for himself. It wasn't even fronted as anything, it was just straight up a building which had only been built to run organized crime. It really was absurd what you could get away with in a city owned by crime lords.

Stepping out, Percy entered a lobby he had gotten rather familiar with in the last 72 hours. It was mostly abandoned, but a few guards stood around the room, just waiting for an idiot to walk in the wrong door.

His men nodded for him as he walked out, and Percy returned the nod. The whole thing was infinitely more casual than he had thought it would be.

He had been able to change out his dark suit for jeans and a t-shirt now that he wasn't beholden to anyone, and generally just went about his day like normal, except he now had millions of dollars worth of organized crime in his pocket.

Aspro had a chauffeur and a number of attendants, the Blue Wolves leader had their men bow to them and wait on them hand and foot, and Percy was a seventeen year old walking around in jeans and a t-shirt. The difference between them was very easily highlighted to his men.

There were of course some who had taken his lack of formality or imposing his ego upon others as a weakness. Those men were unfortunately no longer around to spread those ideas.

Percy walked out into his parking lot and grabbed one of his cars, a fancy convertible which had been given to the leader of the Blue Wolves as a bribe. (The fact that he had multiple cars boggled his mind. His family could barely afford a ten year old Prius on Earth.) Hopping in, he made his way to the bullhead docks.

Every city of some import had a bullhead docks, though the smaller cities had much less traffic. While he had been told that larger cities would likely have dozens taking people in and out of the city at any one time, for a city like Windpath it was far less frequent.

That's why Percy wasn't entirely surprised when he arrived at the bullhead docks, only to find that there weren't any there. He could wait for one, but Qrow's friend was bleeding out in the middle of a forest at the moment.

A thought flickered into his head, and Percy let a small smirk cross his face. Gods, he probably looked like an asshole right about now.

Pulling a U-turn in the middle of traffic, Percy decided to head to the nearest police station. After all, if he owned the police, why not use them?

The police mainly stayed out of gang business because the gangs as a whole owned basically every police officer in the city, but some of the larger or more profitable gangs — Like Aspro's — specifically paid off cops to stay well clear of their business and do basically anything asked of them. Well, Percy was going to come asking.

Speeding through traffic, it was only a couple minutes until Percy arrived in front of a police station. He noted that yes, there was a bullhead on the roof.

Parking his car haphazardly in the police lot, he hopped out of his car and marched up the stairs and into the front door of the precinct. Nobody paid him any mind as he walked up to the front desk. Cops just continued drinking their coffee and going about their business.

Being a cop was a joke in Windpath. They did intervene in non-organized crime, but considering how much organized crime there was, there was almost no room for random thiefs or murderers. As such, police were stuck with nothing to do but lounge around most of the time.

"How can I help you sir? Are you here to file a police report?"

There was a peppy girl just out of her teens behind the front desk. One of those people who was far, far too energetic for so early in the morning. Maybe she was here on an internship, maybe she was just a new cop. Percy didn't know and he didn't really care.

"I need to speak with your captain." was Percy's response. He didn't know the name of the captain here specifically, but Percy had seen their finances. Aspro paid enough every year that the commissioner was so far in their pocket they might as well own the police force. It was half the reason their finances were as bad as they were. Doubtless many of the other more profitable gangs had done the same, but as far as Percy was concerned, the precinct worked for him at this point.

The girl frowned slightly. "I'm sorry, but you need an appointment to see the captain for whatever reason. Do you know him personally? If so if I could get a name-"

"Tell him the new leader of the Alpikos gang is here." he interrupted.

She froze, and every cop in the room froze with her.

"Sir, is this a joke? We're police, if you're the leader of a gang we'll arrest you on the spot."

Percy rolled his eyes. "Yeah alright. Whatever. Tell him I'm here or I'm walking back there with or without your permission."

"Sir, you are in a police station. You can't just do whatever you like. If you don't stop your behavior right no-"

"Now, now Sandra. I can take it from here."

Another officer interrupted her, walking over to the two with a few officers lingering behind him. Percy saw from the rank on his shoulder that he was a police sergeant.

"I'll show you to the captain. Right this way, sir. I apologise for our secretary, she's new."

Percy shrugged. He wasn't all that bothered. Maybe if Aspro was here in his place her kneecaps would be gone or something, but Percy wasn't Aspro.

"Sergeant! How could you! He's claiming to be the head of one of the largest gangs in the city, why aren't you arresting him?!"

The girl stood up, seemingly outraged. Percy winced. How did you live in this city and not see the state of things. The police were so obviously in the gang's pockets that it hurt. Though Percy was a bit biased. His introduction to the city had almost immediately started with him being inducted into a gang. Maybe it was less obvious if you had lived in the city your whole life, moreso if you were sheltered or lived in a better part of town.

The sergeant winced and looked at him apologetically. "Again, my apologies sir. We'll deal with her. The offense won't happen again. Please, right this way." he gestured to a hallway.

Percy observed the girl's wide, disbelieving eyes. She had probably believed that some cops were bribed into turning a blind eye to the gangs but hoped to fix that from the inside. Obviously, nobody could just go into a police station, declare themselves a crime lord, and then get away with it, right?

Percy shook his head, feeling some sympathy for the girl. "No, it's fine. She's done nothing wrong other than be naive. Don't punish her, just… fill her in on the sad reality of the city. She doesn't deserve to believe she's working for a good cause."

With that, Percy walked down the hallway towards the captain's office, leaving behind the wide eyed girl, who was now being told off by a lieutenant.

A short trip through an elevator later and he was standing outside a captain's office with a small escort of police officers keeping him company.

A police escort. For the leader of a gang. Life certainly had a sense of irony sometimes.

The police sergeant moved in front of him and opened the door for him, allowing Percy to step into the small office.

"Huh? Who are you?" the captain stood from his desk curiously.

Percy thought about that. His natural response would be Percy Jackson, or Percy, but he didn't want to be known as a crime lord everywhere. Doubtless, his name would be well known within the city. He hoped to go somewhere within the city where people didn't kowtow at the sight of him. He had already had enough of that at the tavern Aspro had ran, and he wanted no more of it.

"Perseus." He finally answered.

The door closed behind him, and the captain looked even further confused.

"How can I help you, Perseus?"

"I'm the new leader of what was formerly the Aplikos gang. I need to borrow a bullhead, a pilot, and a medical team. Immediately."

The captain blinked. "You can't expect me to just give anyone a bullhead because they claim to be the head of a gang, can you?"

Percy shrugged, pulling out his scroll and navigating to a site. As Aspro's chief enforcer, he had been doing the man's job for him. That meant he had access to his accounts before he kicked the bucket. The number two in the Blue Wolves, who Aspro had wrangled to his side, had access to their finances. It was a small matter to transfer the funds from one account into the other, and then from that account to a separate one that nobody else could possibly have access to.

But he still had those old bank accounts, which would come in handy for stuff like this.

"Well, gang leader or not, I'm paying your bosses paycheck, and likely a lot of yours too. So get me my bullhead, or there'll be a new captain of this precinct." he threatened.

The captain looked at the scroll he held out, seeing the bevy of transfers to the commissioner's account. On earth he would have to transfer it to his wife or some relative, or some front for a business to stop the paper trail. In Mistral, things were not nearly so tight. Assuming that someone in whatever agency tracked that stuff down wasn't corrupt, they could find the payments pretty easily.

Then they would bring the defendant to court, where the evidence would get declared insufficient by a corrupt judge. If that somehow failed, by some incredible odds, no juror would refuse money to feed their family with just so they could convict a single criminal who was guilty of something half the city was.

If they somehow refused, then they would end up dead in their bedrooms the next morning, and since the cops were in their pocket, the evidence would only prove that the defendant had nothing to do with it. They would have to hold a new trial with a new jury.

Rinse and repeat.

Essentially, bribing the police was incredibly easy.

Grunting, the captain nodded.

"Sergeant!" he called.

Said sergeant opened the door, peeking his head into the room. The other officers remained outside, presumably to escort him to where he needed to go. He knew he had the police in his pocket, but not this much. Damn.

"Arrange for a bullhead to be prepared immediately, with a pilot and medical team on board. They will be placed under the command of Perseus."

"At once, sir." he shut the door.

Percy stood and turned towards the door. "Oh, and do me a favor and get a spot in the hospital nice and ready for when we get back. It shouldn't be too urgent, but I'd prefer not to wait." Percy told the captain, getting a nod of acknowledgement in return.

Percy was about to leave, but paused.

"What's your name?" he asked, turning to the captain.

He straightened slightly.

"Captain Ochre Kermes, sir."

Percy nodded. "You're cooperative, but not stupid. I'll remember that." he said, before walking out the door.

An officer greeted him on the other side. "Right this way, sir."

A minute later saw him waiting in a bullhead, and five minutes after that saw everyone on board. Percy sat comfortably with a small medical team, two pilots, and an escort of the sergeant from before as well as two other officers.

Shrugging off the extra escort, Percy leaned back and decided to try to enjoy the ride. Who knows, maybe without a Zeus in this world flying wouldn't be so bad.

"Where are we going, sir?" one of the pilots looked back at him.

Percy winced, he had almost forgotten that part.

Pulling out his scroll, Percy pulled up the coordinates that Qrow had sent him. Showing them to the pilot, it was only a matter of punching the coordinates into the navigation system and they were off.

Flying, it turned out, was still not fun.

It helped that there wasn't an unnatural amount of turbulence, or a sudden storm taking place directly on top of them, but Percy was still tense. He knew that now it was irrational, but his instincts were screaming at him.

You should not be this high up! Why are you this high up? Why are you flying, do you want to die?

Percy did his best to ignore his instincts, though he failed pretty badly. If any of the officers noticed, they didn't comment.

"Ah, Perseus. That is, um-" the medic cleared his throat. "Sir, do you know what kind of injury we'll be dealing with? If we're aware it might help us better prepare."

Percy frowned. "I know he's bleeding, but likely slowed or stopped it by now. That's all I know, sorry."

The medic only nodded, remaining silent as he shuffled around a few things in the bag he was carrying, his fellow medics doing the same. Percy was pretty sure it was overkill for someone who could apparently survive out here forever if it weren't for the grimm, but he wasn't going to bother saying anything. They were here now, might as well stay for the ride.

It was only a few minutes later when they arrived at the coordinates Qrow had sent to him to see a small plume of smoke from a campfire rising into the air.

The pilot sat the bullhead down in a small clearing a few hundred feet away, and Percy hopped out with the medical staff and the officers.

"Stay here with the bullhead in case a stray grimm pops up." he ordered the police, not waiting for the nods of acknowledgement before he started walking to where the campsite was set up.

When Percy came across the campsite it was to see a single man waiting for them in front of his fire. He had white hair and a white jacket, with, believe it or not, white leather pants on. Or at least, one of his legs was white. The other was a crimson red. Percy winced when he saw the long cut along the man's leg. He had bandaged it up with what he had as best he could, but it didn't look pretty. Aura or not, that would be around for a while.

He looked relatively young, but looks could be deceptive when you were talking about those with their aura unlocked, you could be in your eighties and only have the beginning of wrinkles around your eyes. Apparently aura protected the skin from wrinkles and sun damage as well as stab wounds.

The man was the first one to speak, even as the medics rushed over to him. "Qrow's friend? I didn't think you'd be here so soon. Qrow told me there was someone coming to help me a half hour ago." he said.

Percy walked around the campfire as the medics kneeled by his leg, starting to pull out a variety of medical gadgets that Percy hadn't seen before. Benefits of a society with dust, he figured.

"I'm Percy." he introduced, holding out a hand to shake.

"Shiro. Shiro Wan." the man introduced, shaking his hand from where he sat on the ground.

He winced as one of the medics stuck a needle in him and began to stitch.

"Thanks friend, for coming to help me. It'd take days for me to walk back to civilization, even if I was lucky enough to kill off any grimm on the way. I owe you my life." he said.

Percy waved it off. "You owe me nothing. I owe Qrow one, and you let me pay it off instead of having it lorded over my head for the rest of my life."

Shiro laughed. "Yeah, that does sound like him. How do you know the dusty old bird?"

Percy shrugged. "Ran into him at a bar. He beat up a few of my co-workers, we fought, he won, we got a drink together. After that I asked him to train me and he agreed after I gave him the location of a tribe."

Shiro's eyebrows raised. "He trained you? Damn, he must have seen something interesting, that's for sure. Which tribe did he want to find? I haven't heard of any causing too much trouble recently."

Percy shrugged, trying to remember the name of the tribe Qrow had been there to find. It seemed like so long ago.

"The Brownden tribe or something? I don't quite remember, but it started with a B." he recalled.

Shiro's eyes narrowed. "The Branwen tribe?" he asked.

Percy nodded. "Yeah, the Branwen tribe. Why? There something I should know?"

Shiro shook his head. "No, if he didn't tell you then it's not my place to. Probably didn't see it as important. Don't worry, it's not some grand secret or something, just… curious."

Percy shrugged. If it was important, Qrow would have told him. It might be stupid, but he trusted Qrow. Gods knew he had been in more than one situation where Qrow could have killed him, or drugged him, or literally anything else nefarious the man wanted to do. At the very least, Percy could trust Qrow not to want to harm him in any way, so he had to assume the detail wasn't important.

"Sir," one of the medics stood up to address him, "He's stabilized for the moment until those bandages need to be replaced. We should get him back to a hospital to get him hooked up to an IV. After that it'll be a few months of physical therapy and rest before he's good as new."

Percy nodded. "Let's get him back on the bullhead then."

Two of the medics helped Shiro on to his feet, and they all began moving slowly back to the bullhead.

As they settled into the bullhead, Percy sighed in contentment. He could finally get some sleep soon.

Percy had in fact, gotten his sleep. Three days was far too long to stay awake and function, and Percy never wanted to do it again. Qrow's trainings after a late night were hard enough, to mention nothing of defending Manhattan against titans with no sleep, but three days of doing paperwork and beating up uppity gang members took the cake.

After waking up he'd just finished the bare minimum amount of work he could get away with before leaving his office, then he started driving to the hospital to check up on Qrow's friend.

Qrow was aware that his friend was safe in a hospital by now, but it wouldn't hurt to keep tabs on the guy. A huntsman in the city of Windpath was a big deal, and no doubt the news had spread fast. Usually, a team would be sent if there were reports of grimm trouble and absolutely eradicate any grimm dumb enough to be in the area before leaving the day after. Huntsmen were a rare commodity, after all. Only one school took in a dozen applicants every year in Mistral, and with the fatality rate the occupation had, there were very few hunters to go around and protect the millions of people who lived in Mistral.

He had done some research, sue him. As much as he hated reading, Qrow had settled for nothing less than him knowing at least the basics of the schools and how being a huntsman worked, and his curiosity had taken him the rest of the way. The point being, the least he owed Shiro was to show up and make sure nobody was harassing him.

Pulling up at the hospital, Percy hopped out and entered. He flashed an ID card the hospital manager had given him to make sure he could get anywhere he wanted in the hospital, before making his way to Shiro's room.

A nurse was standing directly outside the room, presumably waiting to be called in at any moment.

It wasn't something Percy had asked for, but it was something that he was given.

The nurse's eyes went wide when he approached, and she quickly stepped out of the way.

Percy opened the door and looked in to see Shiro sitting there on the hospital bed. His leg was under the sheets, so Percy couldn't see it, but he looked more or less fine.

"Still have you here, huh?" Percy asked, startling Shiro from a book he was reading.

He smiled. "Yeah, I'm supposed to get out tonight with some crutches, but they want to keep me here for now."

Percy chuckled and pulled up a chair to sit at his bedside. "They tend to do that, don't they? You know you're fine, but they want to keep an eye on you anyway."

Shiro laughed. "Ain't that the truth. You a huntsman in training or something, kid?"

Percy shook his head. "I've been trained since I was young, but never necessarily to be a huntsman. Qrow gave me the first bit of huntsman training I'd gotten a couple weeks ago."

Shiro shrugged. "You just had that air about you. Like you've seen some stuff. I don't mean to press, but I was curious."

"No problem. It's hardly the first time I've gotten questions."

Shiro frowned. "Hey, did anyone talk to you about the bill? Usually they get your money out of you the minute you're conscious."

"Nah, don't worry about it. The bill's paid for." Percy assured him.

They hadn't bothered to charge him either, but he — or at least Aspro — had paid more than enough for such a simple treatment to dozens of officials, who would no doubt remove the administrator of the hospital if something happened to displease him.

Shiro scowled. "I already owe you more than enough, at least let me pay for my own hospital bill. I'm a huntsman, I'm hardly hurting for money." Shiro scowled.

"Trust me, I'm not hurting for money either." Percy told him.

And he wasn't lying. Despite taking over the gangs mere days ago he had made tens of thousands. He was expected to make monthly payments to various officials to keep them very, very firmly in his pocket, but Percy would have to find a way to mitigate that cost.

The bright side was that he now owned a gang twice the size of Aspro's and was expected to make the same amount of payments as just one average size gang. The profit margins had more than doubled.

Which meant he had room to expand his operations in every direction. Hire more people, increase security, buy more drugs to sell, whatever. There was only one problem; he didn't want to.

He had no reason not to just wait for enough money to pile up in his bank account that he'd never have to work a day in his life, and then walk off into the sunset while flipping off everyone behind him. At the current rate, that would be pretty damn soon if he was smart about it and found out how to invest in whatever this world's version of the stock market was. A month, probably, once everything really started flowing in, two at the most.

Was it wrong to leave the city of Windpath to more cruel crime lords and the doubtless fighting that would take place over the territory he left behind? Probably. But he couldn't find it in himself to care enough to actually stick around. As wrong as leaving the city to its fate felt, it felt even more wrong to actually be performing and sponsoring those crimes. It didn't matter that it was the right thing to do objectively because it felt so wrong.

Shiro grumbled, but left it at that. "I suppose I'll thank you for your generosity, then. I may be a huntsman, but I don't know how long it'll be before I can work again. That ursa really did a number on me."

Percy winced. "Yeah, I'd imagine. It didn't exactly look great when I got there. Do you need a place to stay while you're in Windpath?"

Shiro frowned. "No, no, you've already done more than enough, I can find a place to stay, and I'll need to find some work while I'm in the area for the foreseeable future."

Percy frowned but dropped it, leaning back in his seat.

They sat there in a comfortable silence for a while until Percy got an idea.

He pulled out his scroll, pulling up his one friend's number and typing out a message.

Do you trust Shiro?

He sat there for a few minutes waiting for a reply.

"So, what do you do for work if you're not a huntsman?" Shiro broke the silence.

Percy's scroll went off.

With my life. Why?

Percy typed back a message quickly.

I'll tell you later.

Percy looked up at Shiro and smiled. "I have an interesting line of work. I'm in it more by circumstance than choice, but we do what we have to."

Shiro nodded. "Amen to that. I'm glad I got to be one of the fancy huntsmen, instead of some factory worker making barely enough to live off of my wages, or workin' in some SDC mine."

"You said you were looking for work, right?" Percy paused. "How would you like to work for me?"

Shiro rolled his eyes. "I told you, you've already done more than enough. There's no way you're gonna give me money, too."

Percy laughed. "Trust me, this isn't helping you. I need someone I can trust where I work, and Qrow trusts you, which means I trust you."

Shiro paused. "What's the job?"

Percy winced. "I won't lie, the hours suck and it's a bit demanding, but you should be able to do it from the comfort of your couch. This is gonna sound bad, just… hear me out."

He nodded. "I'm listening."

"I'm the leader of a gang. The biggest gang in Windpath, actually. Again, I didn't exactly seek this life out, it just kind of… fell into my lap. I'm seventeen for gods' sake. I have a lot of shit to do, and I have nobody that I can delegate it to because I have zero people that I actually trust below me."

"You want me… To get into organized crime, to work for you."

Percy winced again. "Yeah, pretty much. The pay is whatever you want it to be. Same with the hours, though there is a lot of work, I won't lie. I found myself in this position and I'm at least trying to make things not quite so bad while I'm here. Less needless violence, more civility… you know, whatever I can do. Crime is going to exist here whether I'm here or not, I might as well try and make it a bit better, even if it's just for a little while."

"You're not planning on staying."

"No, not really. I don't want anything to do with this life, to be honest. I only got this far because I either needed to survive, or it would be stupid to do anything else. I just wanna go retire at 18 or something and live out the rest of my days killing monsters."

Shiro laughed. "Don't we all. Man, I never thought I'd be a criminal, but as you said, if Qrow trusts you, it's enough for me. I'll work for you. On two conditions."

Percy perked up. "Wait, really!? I mean, sure. Go ahead. Name them."

"One," Shiro held up a finger. "You don't micromanage me. You let me do what I do, and you don't interfere."

"Done."

"And two, I leave at any time. Whenever I want. I'll give you some notice if I can, but if I don't like how things are looking, I'm gone."

Percy smiled and held out a hand. "I think we have ourselves a deal."

Shiro grinned, taking his hand. "I think we do. Do we need to write up some contract or something?"

Percy laughed. "Nah, just do what I tell you to and I give you money. Pretty simple if you ask me."

Shiro laughed with him. "I think I see what the old bird saw in you, kid. You'll be a fun boss."

"I hope so. For now I'll let you get your r&r, but when you get out go to this address," Percy handed him a piece of paper out of his pocket, the address of Aspro's — Now Percy's — tavern on it. "There'll be a hot meal and a room waiting for you. I'll come see you in the morning to fill you in on your new position."

Shiro nodded, taking the piece of paper. "Thank you, Percy, for everything."

Percy snorted. "Thank me? You're the one that's gonna be doing my job for me. Thank you."

Shiro rolled his eyes. "The pay better be damn good."

"Trust me, it is. I'll see you tomorrow, Shiro."

"Yeah, see ya."

Percy walked out of the room with a smile. He had found his number two. Time would tell if it was a good choice, but for now there was a light at the end of the tunnel. A future where he could safely shove everything onto a more prepared successor and fuck off.

Percy looked forward to that future very much.

Ayyy new chapter. Sorry its a bit late today, I was drivin to Lansing to chill with Jerome(My co-writer on Blood and Water) and got a flat tire, so that burned a good three hours. But it's here now.

Thanks for all the reviews guys, and if you asked me a question in your review you might wanna check your PMs, cause I've answered one or two.

See ya' next week.

Next Chapter September 26