Son of the Moon

23

-Percy-

Standing at the gate to camp he nervously waited for his four quest mates to show up so they could leave for the quest. The prophecy had, much to Chiron's shock and Annabeth's anger, actually stated every person who was to go on the quest. 'strongest of the daughters of grain' was a reference to Katie Gardener, the head of the Demeter cabin and the strongest of them in terms of both fighting ability and powers.

'The fiercest son of the vines' was about Dionysus son Castor. While both Castor and his brother were capable athletes and fighters Castor was far more eager in battle, fiercer than his brother who preferred working the strawberry fields.

'the daughter of King of Divines' was talking about Thalia, being the only demigoddess daughter of Zeus at the camp. He was surprised though at how eager Thalia was to go on the quest but chose not to pay too much attention to it, more focused on rescuing his mom, Bianca, and Nico.

'the daughter banished from home' was Zoe as she was banished from the garden of the Hesperides. Most of the camp was confused about that line but he steadfast refused to reveal his sister's past and her secrets. Before going to bed he had used a tracking spell to locate the 'Bane of Olympus' that was supposed to show the trail and found the spell was telling him to go to Washington D.C.

Finally Katie, Castor, Thalia, and Zoe arrived with their packs as Chiron handed Zoe the keys to the Camp's van as they loaded up. They drove for several hours before stopping at a Maryland rest stop and he redid the tracking spell to make sure that the bane of Olympus was still in D.C. which it was.

"I don't like this," Thalia grumbled after he did the spell "shouldn't we just head directly west? The prophecy says that Artemis is trapped west.".

"It's a time honored tracking spell," he said irritably "and the prophecy said that the path we would have to take would be shown by the 'bane of Olympus' and you should never TRY to fight a prophecy, it will only make things harder.".

When Thalia opened her mouth to retort Zoe glared at her and snapped "Don't challenge my brother's skills you scullion! You know nothing of the skills of a Hunter!".

Thalia turned to Zoe furiously "Oh, Scullion? You're calling me a scullion?...What the heck is a scullion?!" the daughter of Zeus ranted.

"It means a kitchen servant who does the most unimportant tasks," he said without looking up from the acorns he used for the spell "now let's go.". Scooping up the acorns he moved past his glaring sister and Thalia before getting into the shotgun seat of the van. He felt a little bit guilty about how he was treating Thalia but he wasn't sure how to act around her anymore. Ever since Bianca…left him and told him how Thalia was, apparently, falling in love with him, he had felt completely awkward whenever he was near the daughter of Zeus but didn't want to completely cut her out of his group. He had been able to notice now how her actions could be her developing a crush on him, he refused to believe it was love as his heart belonged to Bianca, but tried not to think about it too much.

After another sixty miles of driving they arrived in Washington and found themselves outside the Smithsonian Air and Space museum. As the others began going inside to look around he stiffened when he saw the manticore from the military school going towards the Museum of Natural History as he turned towards Zoe, "Keep an eye on the others," he whispered "I need to check on something." And rushed off before she could stop him.

Following Thorn to the Natural History Museum which had a sign that read 'CLOSED FOR PRIVATE EVENT' but Thorn completely ignored it, throwing off all kinds of mental warnings. Following Thorn through a chamber full of mastodons and dinosaur skeletons he heard two voices up ahead, behind a set of closed doors, as he crept along the shadows to avoid being seen.