After retrieving the hourglass, they made a makeshift camp just outside the Garden of Hesperides. Percy caught a whiff of mint from the eucalyptus trees inside the garden. A tree shined dimly in gold thanks to the Golden Apples.
They sat near a bonfire, the fire crackling quietly in the dark. Percy's hand was sore, but at least the bleeding had stopped. If he could find water, this would heal instantly. But unfortunately, he'd have to wait.
"Here, let me help," Zoe offered. Percy held out his hand. Zoe took out a roll of bandage and a flask of nectar. She poured nectar over the wound, which made Percy wince, then wrapped his hand neatly with bandage. It felt better.
"Thanks," Percy said. He was a bit nervous, since he was there when Zoe had died and put near the stars. Seeing her here was . . . weird. But after what happened a year ago, seeing dead people didn't surprise him.
"I guess I should explain," Zoe said, poking the fire with her hunting knife. The tip glowed bright red.
"Where's the middle age English accent you had?" Percy asked.
"Elysium has a lot of modern dead people," Zoe smiled. "It's not hard to learn."
"Elysium . . ." Percy said it out loud like a distant thought. "I'm guessing you went through the Doors of Death, like every other mortal that came back alive,"
Zoe nodded. "I just passed by, as if I was a ghost. No one saw me. I was guided there by someone, took the elevators up and went back to the living side. Then I stayed in my home, the Garden of Hesperides. That is until you showed up."
If Gaia had anything to do with it, she didn't say anything.
"Well, it's great to have you back," Percy said. "And, um, sorry about what happened to you before,"
Zoe frowned. "What do you mean?"
Percy got nervous. "You know, about you dying and stuff," It got silent for a few minutes. Her eyes seemed so far away, just gazing into the fire.
"It's not your fault," Zoe said finally after a brief of silence. "I fell in combat serving Lady Artemis. I died as a hero. There's no better way to go,"
"I could argue with that," Percy shrugged.
"Anyway, what's your story?" Zoe asked. As soon as she asked that, Percy flinched. "Is there something wrong?"
"No, no," Percy said. He was in a dilemma. Should he tell her? It's not like anyone knew she's alive. Even if she told everyone, no one would remember him.
You can tell her if you want, Gaia said in his head. That was weird, since Gaia had told him not to tell anyone about this. But hey, if Gaia herself gave him the green light, then it was fine by Percy. He needed someone to talk to as well.
"I'm gonna tell you my story," Percy said. "But you have to promise me that no one can ever know,"
Zoe frowned again. "Why?"
"Because of two reasons. One, no one would believe you anyway and two, it's better this way." Percy fixed her with a steely stare. "And I mean no one, can know. Not even Artemis,"
Zoe wasn't sure if he was lying or he was telling the truth. But she sensed that something had changed within the boy. Whether it's good or bad, she wasn't sure.
"I promise."
Percy's expression softened. "After we defeated Kronos, a new prophecy had been issued,"
Zoe nodded. "I know all about that. The war with Gaia and everything."
Percy grimaced. Percy wasn't going to tell her the whole thing. "A few seconds before I beat Gaia, time froze. She warned me that something else is coming. Something bigger than her,"
"Gaia warned you?"
Percy nodded. "She needed my help in collecting these relics –" Percy gestured at the hourglass. "– that used to belong to powerful beings. We're going to need them to face whatever that's coming our way. She wanted me to find them, but under one condition,"
"Which is?"
Percy took a deep breath before answering. "No one can come with me. Everyone will forget about me. Everything about me will be a clean slate. No one will remember me but me,"
And me, Perseus. Gaia added.
Zoe's eyes widened in surprise. She understood about not wanting to endanger his friends or keep a low profile, but that can't be easy even for someone as tough as Percy.
He had achieved what most demigods only dreamed of achieving. No one had come close to being as strong as Percy. No one had sacrificed more for the world than Percy. And what was his reward?
To be forgotten, unrecognized even by the ones he loved, only to be put in front of another dangerous task. Zoe could see the burden he bears, weighing heavily on his shoulders. Zoe felt bad for him. Living dangerously was normal in the life of a demigod. To face danger all the time was normal. But sometimes, she wondered if Percy has had enough. From the stories she heard in Elysium, Percy hadn't catch a break since he found out he was a demigod when he was twelve.
After the fight with Kronos was done, he had only a little break before Hera sent him off to Camp Jupiter, where he was in line to face another dangerous opponent, Gaia herself.
And even then, it wasn't enough. After going through a month-long process to beat Gaia, Percy was now facing something bigger than Gaia.
If this keeps going, he's going to snap. A man's patience can only go for so long.
"I'm sorry," Zoe said.
"For what?"
"I guess I just feel bad for you," Zoe said. "After all you've been through, it just doesn't seem fair,"
Percy managed a sad smile. "No, it's not fair. But what can you do? We can only plan. Only the Fates decide what happens and what not."
"You are a philosopher, Percy Jackson,"
"And you are warming up to me," Percy grinned. "Has your man-hating spirit faded, Zoe?"
"Don't tempt me, Jackson," Zoe glared at him.
Percy laughed and held his hands up in surrender. "Not going to. If you don't mind, I'm going to sleep first. I just had a fight with a manifestation of the Titan Lord and I'm tired."
Zoe grinned. "You managed to beat the Titan Lord single-handedly, and you almost lost to his manifestation? Someone's getting rusty,"
"I wouldn't say single-handedly. I definitely had help." Percy chuckled. "Goodnight Zoe. I trust you won't kill me in my sleep,"
"Why would I do that?"
"Maybe you would get annoyed if I snore too loudly,"
"I'll just gag you," Zoe shrugged. "Now sleep,"
Line Break
Next morning, Percy woke up, feeling better than last night. His back and left hand was still sore, but he's had worse. He looked around and found that Zoe had disappeared, leaving nothing but a patch of burnt grass from where they'd set up campfire last night.
Percy groaned as he sat up. He was worried for Zoe, but not that worried. She's a Hunter and she could take care of herself. Besides, the Garden of Heperides is just around the corner. Percy stood up and studied at the hourglass he'd retrieved.
"So, this belongs to your son before?" Percy asked.
Yes. This contains a fraction of his power to manipulate time. Gaia said. Not as powerful as my son's, but still powerful. There was a little bit of resentment in her tone, but Percy decided not to dwell on it.
"Well, time to head back," Percy said. "Oh yeah, do you have any idea where Zoe went?"
There was no answer from her. It was hard to communicate with Gaia. Well, being asleep would make it hard to talk.
"Who are you talking to?" A voice said behind him. He turned around to see Zoe grinning at him.
"Hey," Percy smiled. "Thought you left,"
"Well, for a moment I was planning to. Then I decided something,"
"What is it?"
"I'm going to follow you,"
Percy stared at her for probably a few seconds before he blurted out, "What?"
Zoe shrugged. "You need help in your quest. Clearly you're not as good as I remembered because you lost to a glass figure –"
"In my defense, I was handicapped,"
"– and besides, this 'something big' thing is coming and all of us, including your friends, are going to face it sooner or later. You're gonna need all the help you can get."
Percy stood there, not knowing what to say. That's when Gaia decided to speak up. It's your decision. If you want her to join you, then let her.
Percy thought about it. Percy had to admit, it wasn't a bad idea. It had been rough lately, getting the relics by himself. Plus, the enemies he's facing is getting stronger by the day.
Plus, it'd be nice to have someone to talk to other than the deity in his head. Gaia's not a very good conversation partner.
"Well, if you're okay with it," Percy shrugged.
Zoe's smiled, before turning serious again. "But I am not spending my nights with you on the same bed."
Percy grinned. "There's the man-hating Zoe that I know."
Line Break
The demigods from the prophecy gathered inside the Senate House, to talk about something. Leo Valdez was busy tinkering with parts of bolts and nuts from his toolbelt, Piper and Jason sat together side by side which made Reyna jealous.
Annabeth sat next to Reyna, studying everyone while Frank told Hazel stories about being a praetor.
"So, what did you want to ask me about?" Annabeth said. "Piper told me you found something under Little Tiber."
Reyna nodded grimly. After Frank became praetor, Reyna looked like she had a huge weight taken off of her shoulders. Which made sense since Camp Jupiter needed two praetors instead of one, and Reyna had been doing the job by herself.
Now with Frank by her side, along with Jason and Hazel, her job of leading Camp Jupiter is easier.
"I found two things under the Tiber. Here's one of them," Reyna took out a standard ballpoint pen. Everyone stared at it in confusion.
"Um, it's a pen," Leo muttered.
Reyna rolled her eyes. She took the pen and pulled the cap off. Instantly, it turned into a bronze leaf-shaped sword. Everyone jumped a bit in surprise.
"Wow," Frank said. "That's a neat sword,"
"But it doesn't look . . . Roman," Hazel added. "Plus, I think it's made out of Celestial Bronze,"
Annabeth didn't know why, but the sword looked very familiar. Through her times studying combat, she'd seen plenty of weapons. Maybe she'd seen this one before?
"Yes, it's definitely Celestial Bronze," Annabeth said. "And that engraving in the hilt, what does it say?"
Reyna looked at it. "It's not Latin, that's for sure." She handed the sword to Annabeth. It was surprisingly well balanced.
The hilt read, Anaklusmos. "Riptide," Annabeth muttered out loud.
"What?"
"The name of the sword," Annabeth said. "Riptide. How do you close it?"
Reyna tossed the pen cap at Annabeth. "Touch the cap to the tip of the sword." Reyna said. Annabeth did what she told her and instantly, the sword shrunk back to a ballpoint pen.
"Huh," Jason said. "It really is a nice weapon. But it seems easy to lose it."
Reyna shook her head. "Ever since I have it, no matter where I put it or throw it away, it always return to my pocket,"
"But what if it got stuck? Like for instance, if I duct tape it to the wall?" Leo asked. Reyna didn't answer. "Just wondering.,"
Annabeth put the pen down on the table. "Anyway, you said there were two things?"
Reyna nodded. This time, she took out something small. It looked like some kind of coin, only slightly bigger. It was gold, which reminded Annabeth of Kronos for some odd reason. Reyna slid the coin to Annabeth. "Be careful with it."
Annabeth picked it up. "It's a coin," There was no engraving on it except for an apple one side and the moon on the other. "But I can't say I recognize this. It's not like a drachma,"
"That's what I wanted you to check out," Reyna said. "I tried to find out what it is, since it's not any Roman currency that I know of,"
Annabeth slid the coin to Jason, who picked it up and studied it. "Well, maybe it's from a more modern time?"
Reyna shook her head. "I tried looking into that also, but – Jason, don't!"
Annabeth had just enough time to see Jason flick the coin up with his thumb, the way he usually does with his golden coin.
Instead of turning into a sword, Jason flew out of his seat and spun twice vertically in midair before smashing onto a table, as if a ghost had judo-flipped him into oblivion. Everyone jumped and yelped in surprise.
"What the hell . . ." Jason muttered in pain.
"Um, what just happened?" Hazel asked.
"The coin," Reyna said cautiously. "One of our Roman officers tried that and got spun in midair."
"Cool! My turn!" Leo grinned.
"No, not cool." Frank said. "A Roman officer got injured from this."
Annabeth saw the coin right next to Jason. She picked it up gingerly, as if it was a stick of dynamite. Annabeth studied the coin more carefully. On one side was an apple, then the other was the moon.
"Maybe Artemis or Diana knows anything about this," Annabeth said. "Because there's a moon engraving,"
"I thought of that too, but the apple just threw me off," Reyna said.
"Maybe they're related," Piper said, helping Jason to stand up.
An apple and the moon. What do they have in common? Annabeth studied the coin even more, then a thought formed in her head.
Annabeth held the coin above her thumb and index finger, like she was going to flip it. Then, she just turned it around to the other side. What happened was really weird.
It felt like someone had picked up the room and spun it upside down. Annabeth felt her blood rising up to her head as she went straight to the roof of the Senate House. She landed with a loud thud and yelped in pain.
"Annabeth!" Reyna shouted out her name. None of them had moved, except for Annabeth who was pulled to the ceiling like metal to magnet.
Annabeth stood up shakily. She was upside down, but everything felt normal. She didn't feel like her head was going to explode or any motion sickness.
"Um, you're upside down," Leo pointed out.
It's not like her feet had suddenly gained the ability to stick to any surface. It was more like her center of gravity had changed, seeing as how her hair wasn't dangling over her friends.
"I think the coin controls gravity," Annabeth said. "Hold on, I'm going down."
"Annabeth –" Piper didn't finish her sentence as Annabeth flipped the coin upside down again. The same thing happened. It was like the room had been spun around instead of Annabeth. This time, Annabeth managed to land, sort of. She crashed onto the floor, but at least she braced for impact. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," Annabeth said. "Yeah, this thing controls gravity." She put it carefully on the table. "For whoever that holds it, their center of gravity changes if you flip the coin to the other side."
"That," Piper muttered. "is scary,"
"Was there even such a thing as this before? If there's a magic item like this, surely I've heard of it," Reyna said.
"Same here." Annabeth said. "I don't remember any gravity controlling items. Heck, I don't know if there is a god for gravity in the Greek pantheon,"
"Well, we can't risk having it around," Reyna said. "Anyone want to keep it?"
Leo's hand went up instantly.
"Um, no," Hazel said. "Don't we have a vault?"
Reyna nodded. "I'll store it in the vault then. Any objections?" No one said anything except for Leo who groaned. "Then I'll-"
"Praetors!" A Roman burst into the room. "Lady Diana is coming,"
"Diana?" Leo frowned. "The princess?"
Hazel smacked him on the arm. "He's talking about the Goddess of the Moon, but in her Roman aspect,"
Leo shrunk in his seat while Annabeth just smiled as she shook her head. Well, at least she gets to see Thalia again.
Line Break
There's good news and bad news with Diana coming to Camp Jupiter.
The good news is that Thalia is coming and they would be honored with the goddess' visit.
The bad news, she didn't come alone with her hunters. She brought an army of hostile Cyclopes with her, which was strange. But Annabeth guessed that after a tiring fight against Gaia and dealing with their schizophrenia before, the gods don't have much energy.
Even the Hunters didn't look too good. Their numbers had been diminished than when Annabeth last saw them.
"Shit," Hazel muttered as they watch the Hunters and Diana herself defend themselves at the Field of Mars, against an army of Cyclopes.
"Sound the alarm!" Frank shouted. He transformed into a dragon and gestured them to climb on to join the battle.
They climbed on as Frank flew down, breathing out a pillar of flames. Unfortunately, Annabeth knew better. Cyclopes were fireproof, so fire did nothing to them.
"They're fireproof," Annabeth supplied. Frank made what sounded like a grunt before dropping them off at the Hunters.
Lady Diana didn't look very surprised as she fired arrow after arrow along with her hunters. Annabeth spotted Thalia next to her. When she saw Annabeth, she gave her a grin before turning back towards the enemy.
"Glad you could help!" Thalia said. They fought side by side against the Cyclopes, who didn't seem like much, but their size and strength made it harder.
This was going to be a long fight.
Line Break
After what seemed like forever, the whole Roman army came and charged, which made their job a whole lot easier.
Frank turned into a gorilla and started to bash into the skulls of the Cyclopes. He tried giving orders to the Roman legion, but forgot that he was still a gorilla, so it came out like, "Augh! Ogh Agh!"
Luckily, Reyna was there. "Form ranks!" She shouted. A dozen of Roman legionnaires stood in line in front of them with their shield locked in. "Advance!"
Annabeth had always admired how organized the Roman military was. In their camp, the only time the campers had been organized was when Connor led the toilet paper raid. During battle, Camp Half-Blood's battle philosophy was 'if it works, it works'.
Jason flew and decapitated anything that stood tall enough while Piper did her best with Hazel in swordfighting.
Leo tried shooting flames, but since he didn't hear Annabeth's little tip, he was surprised that it didn't work.
Annabeth had her sword made out of drakon skin that . . . Annabeth didn't remember how she had the thing. She weaved her way through the legs of a Cyclops and stabbed it behind the knee. The Cyclops tumbled before Thalia finished it off with an arrow through the head.
She didn't know how much of them were left, but it didn't look good.
"Everyone close your eyes!" Annabeth heard Diana yelled. She immediately knew what was going to happen.
As Diana revealed her true form, every single Cyclopes disintegrated. Hopefully, none of the demigods shared the same fate.
Annabeth figured it must've not been good for Diana. Her godly energy had been diminished enough before using her true form.
She scanned the battlefield. There was nothing left of the enemy except for dust and some wooden clubs. She sighed in relief.
"Glad that's over," Thalia said next to her. Annabeth agreed. "Hey, there's something I want to talk about right after this."
"What's it about?"
"It's about the Percy Jackson guy,"
Line Break
From a far hill, overlooking the entirety of Camp Jupiter, was Percy Jackson along with his new companion, Zoe Nightshade. They had observed the battle and strained themselves from interfering.
"So you're telling me you won't help her?" Zoe asked.
"I would if I have to, but it's okay. She has the entirety of New Rome with her. Besides, your goddess is among them. I doubt anything will go wrong,"
Zoe didn't look pleased with their decision, watching her sisters fight from afar. No one knew she was alive. It's probably better that way.
"So, our next relic is there?" Percy asked Gaia.
Yes, Gaia muttered. It's a coin, used by Issac Newton.
"Issac Newton huh? He's a demigod?"
"Issac Newton was a child of Athena," Zoe supplied. "I had met him once. Brilliant man, but ignorant as well."
Percy decides to ignore that last part. "So, what does it do?"
Anyone who holds it can control their own center of gravity at will. Gaia explained. Right now, it's among them.
"So Issac Newton, the guy who discovered gravity, had once possess a coin that can control gravity?" Percy sighed. "The Greek world is weird,"
Zoe snorted. "You've just realized this now? You've got a lot to learn."
"I guess," Percy stretched his back, which was a mistake since it was still wounded. He yelped in pain. "That was stupid. Let's get us a magical coin,"