Frank's POV
Frank was relieved when the wheels fell off. He'd already thrown up twice from the back of the chariot, which was not fun at the speed of sound. The horse seemed to bend time and space as he ran, blurring the landscape and making Frank feel like he'd just drunk a gallon of whole milk without his lactose-intolerance medicine.
Ella didn't help matters. She kept muttering: "Seven hundred and fifty miles per hour. Eight hundred. Eight hundred and three. Fast. Very fast." The horse sped north across Puget Sound, zooming past islands and fishing boats and very surprised pods of whales.
The landscape ahead began to look familiar—Crescent Beach, Boundary Bay. Frank had gone sailing here once on a school trip. They'd crossed into Canada. The horse rocketed onto dry land.
He followed Highway 99 north, running so fast, the cars seemed to be standing still. Finally, just as they were getting into Vancouver, the chariot wheels began to smoke. "Hazel!" Frank yelled. "We're breaking up!"
She got the message and pulled the reins. The horse didn't seem happy about it, but he slowed to subsonic as they zipped through the city streets. They crossed the Ironworkers bridge into North Vancouver, and the chariot started to rattle dangerously.
At last Arion stopped at the top of a wooded hill. He snorted with satisfaction, as if to say, "That's how we run, fools." The smoking chariot collapsed, spilling Percy, Frank, and Ella onto the wet, mossy ground.
Frank stumbled to his feet. He tried to blink the yellow spots out of his eyes. Percy groaned and started unhitching Arion from the ruined chariot. Ella fluttered around in dizzy circles, bonking into the trees and muttering, "Tree. Tree. Tree."
Only Hazel seemed unaffected by the ride. Grinning with pleasure, she slid off the horse's back. "That was fun!" "Yeah." Frank swallowed back his nausea. "So much fun." Arion whinnied. "He says he needs to eat," Percy translated. "No wonder. He probably burned about six million calories."
Hazel studied the ground at her feet and frowned. "I'm not sensing any gold around here....Don't worry, Arion. I'll find you some. In the meantime, why don't you go graze? We'll meet you—" The horse zipped off, leaving a trail of steam in his wake.
Hazel knit her eyebrows. "Do you think he'll come back?" "I don't know," Percy said. "He seems kind of...spirited." Frank almost hoped the horse would stay away. He didn't say that, of course. He could tell Hazel was distressed by the idea of losing her new friend.
But Arion scared him, and Frank was pretty sure the horse knew it. Hazel and Percy started salvaging supplies from the chariot wreckage. There had been a few boxes of random Amazon merchandise in the front, and Ella shrieked with delight when she found a shipment of books.
She snatched up a copy of The Birds of North America, fluttered to the nearest branch, and began scratching through the pages so fast, Frank wasn't sure if she was reading or shredding. Frank leaned against a tree, trying to control his vertigo.
He still hadn't recovered from his Amazon imprisonment—getting kicked across the lobby, disarmed, caged, and insulted as a baby man by an egomaniacal horse. That hadn't exactly helped his self-esteem.
Even before that, the vision he had shared with Hazel had left him rattled. He felt closer to her now. He knew he'd done the right thing in giving her the piece of firewood. A huge weight had been taken off his shoulders.
On the other hand, he'd seen the Underworld first hand. He had felt what it was like to sit forever doing nothing, just regretting your mistakes. He'd looked up at those creepy gold masks on the judges of the dead and realized that he would stand before them someday, maybe very soon.
Frank had always dreamed of seeing his mother again when he died. But maybe that wasn't possible for demigods. Hazel had been in Asphodel for something like seventy years and never found her mom.
Frank hoped he and his mom would both end up in Elysium. But if Hazel hadn't gotten there—sacrificing her life to stop Gaea, taking responsibility for her actions so that her mother wouldn't end up in Punishment—what chance did Frank have? He'd never done anything that heroic.
He straightened and looked around, trying to get his bearings. To the south, across Vancouver Harbor, the downtown skyline gleamed red in the sunset. To the north, the hills and rain forests of Lynn Canyon Park snaked between the subdivisions of North Vancouver until they gave way to the wilderness.
Frank had explored this park for years. He spotted a bend in the river that looked familiar. He recognized a dead pine tree that had been split by lightning in a nearby clearing. Frank knew this hill.
"I'm practically home," he said. "My grandmother's house is right over there." Hazel squinted. "How far?" "Just over the river and through the woods." Percy raised an eyebrow. "Seriously? To Grandmother's house we go?"
Frank cleared his throat. "Yeah, anyway." Hazel clasped her hands in prayer. "Frank, please tell me she'll let us spend the night. I know we're on a deadline, but we've got to rest, right? And Arion saved us some time. Maybe we could get an actual cooked meal?"
"And a hot shower?" Percy pleaded. "And a bed with, like, sheets and a pillow?" Frank tried to imagine Grandmother's face if he showed up with two heavily armed friends and a harpy.
Everything had changed since his mother's funeral, since the morning the wolves had taken him south. He'd been so angry about leaving. Now, he couldn't imagine going back. Still, he and his friends were exhausted.
They'd been traveling for more than two days without decent food or sleep. Grandmother could give them supplies. And maybe she could answer some questions that were brewing in the back of Frank's mind—a growing suspicion about his family gift. "It's worth a try," Frank decided. "To Grandmother's house we go."
(Y/N)'s POV
He didn't know why the thought had suddenly occurred to him when he was running for his life from amazons, but suddenly, he felt like he had a purpose outside Frank's quest. It was like lightning had struck him.
When Ella had recited a line of prophecy at Phineas' place, (Y/N) had given it some thought, but it was mostly just to see where the Harpy had come across the prophecy. That kickstart meant that when the thought hit him, it suddenly made perfect sense.
Another line of the prophecy came into sharp focus for him, "It falls to luck, that the lost must find." It was an incredibly vague line, but (Y/N) felt like he had figured it out. It finally set him on the right path, and most importantly, he could lord this over Annabeth forever.
Hypnos or Somnus. Whoever it was, had hinted at it earlier, that sooner or later, (Y/N) and the others would have to separate, that was why (Y/N) had always felt so out of place, because he was.
(Y/N) had thought the four of them were meant to stick together and focus on finding his father, but no, Frank, Percy and Hazel had done well enough at that on their own, there was something else they had to find. Something for (Y/N) specifically.
He was meant to be doing something else. Trying to find something else. When (Y/N) had seen those visions of his father, Circe was asking him about something, at first, (Y/N), being the beast of ego he was, had thought she was trying to track him down, but he was wrong.
She was looking for something else, something that would have stopped her dead in her tracks. No pun intended. It was so simple, (Y/N) was so used to not even thinking about it that he hadn't noticed it's absence. Circe was looking for Thanatos's scythe.
His old man must have hidden the weapon before he was captured. Why Circe was looking for it was a mystery to him, but it didn't matter, he had to get to it first. It was the real reason he had been sent here with the others.
(Y/N) thought about his father. Where would he hide it? Thanatos was smart. Not many people knew it, but the specter of death was incredibly smart, just too forgiving. That was how Sisyphus got him, his father had always been too trusting of humans in the old days.
(Y/N) had no doubt in his mind that Thanatos was trusting them again now, that he had put his faith in demigods. In his son. That was his biggest clue, that was why (Y/N) had faith that he could do this. He trusted his father just as much as his father had trusted him.
His father would have made sure something as powerful as his scythe was well hidden and well protected. The best protection he could think of was to make sure only certain people could find it at all.
Thanatos had hidden a clue of breadcrumbs. Somewhere that only the right people could find them. Somewhere that nobody but one person would think of. A place so covered in magic that nobody would have noticed one item with some more.
He left the first clue with the only person among the seven that he had contact with once before. The only person he could have reached. Hazel. She was the key to finding the scythe. (Y/N) knew it.
The lost must find. She had spent years in the fields of Asphodel. Lost. She had visions of her past because she was lost in this time. It had to be her, she was the only one who could have found it. Now the rest was up to (Y/N).
He wasn't too sure how long it took him to travel to New Orleans. All he knew was, it was dark when he arrived. That and one other thing. He was exhausted. So exhausted in fact that when he shadow travelled across the border of the county. He forgot what he was dealing with.
His magic suddenly faded. The shadow he was being pushed through spat him out like he was something unpleasant. When that happened. (Y/N) got a reality check and found out he wasn't dealing with the average city.
A fact that was solidified when he fell out of a shadow and into a freefall, ten feet above concrete, and then tried to shadow travel again to avoid it. The shadow he tried to reach out for did bend, but only a little.
Suddenly he found himself somewhere else, and before he could process the change he bounced off a wall and landed in a metal garbage can a moment later. It knocked the wind out of him, and for a few extremely embarrassing moments, he had to sit there in the trash to recover.
Once he had the energy, he rolled out of the trash, landing on the floor with a thump. "...ouch." He said in protest. He tried to shadow travel again, only to land face first on the floor. It was as if the city itself was saying "Welcome to New Orleans. Don't even try it."
(Y/N) was exhausted. Feeling like he had run a marathon, it was like his body had been drained of any and all energy he could have had, running from the amazons, saving Hazel from her memories, nothing had tired him out like this.
As he sat down to get his bearings, (Y/N) only started feeling worse by the minute. Even as he was trying to catch his breath it was like just being here was sapping him of strength. Something was off about this city.
That being said, the moment he saw the city in all it's glory, he considered him being drained a worthy exchange, because even in this light, New Orleans was a beautiful place. Even now, it looked alive.
(Y/N) stood up and for a moment, just took it in. The air around him seemed to vibrate, almost buzzing with magic, the mist had been so well integrated into the foundations of the city that it inhabited the air. The place was literally breathing magic.
It was around dusk, he could see the streets were still alive with light they burned through the sky, the hum of the city only emphasized by the light it let off. It almost felt like it was its own entity.
(Y/N) understood why this was the one city Hazel thought of at moment's notice, he doubted there was anywhere else quite like it in the world. As (Y/N) looked at one of the most distinct cities in the modern world. he only had one thought. "By the gods I'm starving."
Frank's POV
Frank was so distracted, he would have walked right into the ogres' camp. Fortunately Percy pulled him back. They crouched next to Hazel and Ella behind a fallen log and peered into the clearing.
"Bad," Ella murmured. "This is bad for harpies." It was fully dark now. Around a blazing campfire sat half a dozen shaggy-haired humanoids. Standing up, they probably would've been eight feet tall.
Tiny compared to the giant Polybotes or even the Cyclopes they'd seen in California, but that didn't make them any less scary. They wore only knee-length surfer shorts. Their skin was sunstroke red—covered with tattoos of dragons, hearts, and bikini-clad women.
Hanging from a spit over the fire was a skinned animal, maybe a boar, and the ogres were tearing off chunks of meat with their clawlike fingernails, laughing and talking as they ate, baring pointy teeth.
Next to the ogres sat several mesh bags filled with bronze spheres like cannonballs. The spheres must have been hot, because they steamed in the cool evening air.
Two hundred yards beyond the clearing, the lights of the Zhang mansion glowed through the trees. So close, Frank thought. He wondered if they could sneak around the monsters, but when he looked left and right, he saw more campfires in either direction, as if the ogres had surrounded the property.
Frank's fingers dug into the tree bark. His grandmother might be alone inside the house, trapped. "What are these guys?" he whispered. "Canadians," Percy said. Frank leaned away from him. "Excuse me?"
"Uh, no offense," Percy said. "That's what Annabeth called them when I fought them before. She said they live in the north, in Canada." "Yeah, well," Frank grumbled, "we're in Canada. I'm Canadian. But I've never seen those things before."
Ella plucked a feather from her wings and turned it in her fingers. "Laistrygonians," she said. "Cannibals. Northern giants. Sasquatch legend. Yep, yep. They're not birds. Not birds of North America."
"That's what they're called," Percy agreed. "Laistry—uh, whatever Ella said." Frank scowled at the dudes in the clearing. "They could be mistaken for Bigfoot. Maybe that's where the legend came from. Ella, you're pretty smart."
"Ella is smart," she agreed. She shyly offered Frank her feather. "Oh...thanks." He stuck the feather in his pocket, then noticed Hazel was glaring at him. "What?" he asked. "Nothing." She turned to Percy. "So your memory is coming back? Do you remember how you beat these guys?"
"Sort of," Percy said. "It's still fuzzy. I think I had help. We killed them with Celestial bronze, but that was before ... you know." "Before Death got kidnapped," Hazel said. "So now, they might not die at all."
"If we had (Y/N) maybe. He might have been able to do some weird magic or something, like his dad can, but right now? I don't know." Percy grit his teeth, "Those bronze cannonballs...those are bad news. I think we used some of them against the giants. They catch fire and blow up."
Frank's hand went to his coat pocket. Then he remembered Hazel had his piece of driftwood. "If we cause any explosions," he said, "the ogres at the other camps will come running. I think they've surrounded the house, which means there could be fifty or sixty of these guys in the woods."
"So it's a trap." Hazel looked at Frank with concern. "What about your grandmother? We've got to help her." Frank felt a lump in his throat. Never in a million years had he thought his grandmother would need rescuing, but now he started running combat scenarios in his mind—the way he had back at camp during the war games.
"We need a distraction," he decided. "If we can draw this group into the woods, we might sneak through without alerting the others." "I wish Arion was here," Hazel said. "I could get the ogres to chase me."
Frank slipped his spear off his back. "I've got another idea." Frank didn't want to do this. The idea of summoning Gray scared him even more than Hazel's horse. But he didn't see another way.
"Frank, you can't charge out there!" Hazel said. "That's suicide!" "I'm not charging," Frank said. "I've got a friend. Just...nobody scream, okay?" He jabbed the spear into the ground, and the point broke off.
"Oops," Ella said. "No spear point. Nope, nope." The ground trembled. Gray's skeletal hand broke the surface. Percy fumbled for his sword, and Hazel made a sound like a cat with a hairball.
Ella disappeared and rematerialized at the top of the nearest tree. "It's okay," Frank promised. "He's under control!" Gray crawled out of the ground. He showed no sign of damage from his previous encounter with the basilisks.
He was good as a new in his camouflage and combat boots, translucent gray flesh covering his bones like glowing Jell-O. He turned his ghostly eyes toward Frank, waiting for orders. "Frank, that's a spartus," Percy said.
"A skeleton warrior. They're evil. They're killers. They're—" "I know," Frank said bitterly. "But it's a gift from Mars. Right now that's all I've got. Okay, Gray. Your orders: attack that group of ogres. Lead them off to the west, causing a diversion so we can—"
Unfortunately, Gray lost interest after the word "ogres." Maybe he only understood simple sentences. He charged toward the ogres' campfire. "Wait!" Frank said, but it was too late.
Gray pulled two of his own ribs from his shirt and ran around the fire, stabbing the ogres in the back with such blinding speed they didn't even have time to yell. Six extremely surprised-looking Laistrygonians fell sideways like a circle of dominoes and crumbled into dust.
Gray stomped around, kicking their ashes apart as they tried to re-form. When he seemed satisfied that they weren't coming back, Gray stood at attention, saluted smartly in Frank's direction, and sank into the forest floor.
Percy stared at Frank. "How—" "No Laistrygonians." Ella fluttered down and landed next to them. "Six minus six is zero. Spears are good for subtraction. Yep." Hazel looked at Frank as if he'd turned into a zombie skeleton himself.
Frank thought his heart might shatter, but he couldn't blame her. Children of Mars were all about violence. Mars's symbol was a bloody spear for good reason. Why shouldn't Hazel be appalled?
He glared down at broken tip of his spear. He wished he had any father but Mars. "Let's go," he said. "My grandmother might be in trouble."
(Y/N)'s POV
Shadow travelling that far was a terrible idea. (Y/N) walked around like a zombie. His body felt heavy, he looked down at his fingertips and noticed that they were a lot more translucent than normal.
"Well, that's never a good sign." He thought. Normally he'd only have trouble if he was trying to go international, like his trip to China, and even then, he could usually just walk it off, but not now.
He thought it must have been because the doors of death were no longer in control of his father, and that Circe had siphoned the shadow from him, literally a chunk of his soul was missing. (Y/N)'s hands were going numb.
"Maybe it's time to stop teasing Nico..." He grumbled to himself as he stumbled and had to lean against a wall to stand. Dragging himself along with his hand, his shoulder pressed to a nearby building. "About China..."
The locals took him either as a crazy guy walking down the street, to which they paid no mind, and (Y/N) wasn't offended by this, because it was true. Or another drunk tourist, which didn't bother them. But did concern (Y/N), getting arrested right now would suck.
His whole body felt numb, it was as if the air around him was stinging him, he had experienced something similar to this before, a shadow travel mishap that cost him his skin, but this felt different.
After a moment longer, (Y/N) had to actively focus on recuperating, forcing himself to stay a solid human and not part of the shadows. He tried using the touchstone Lou Ellen taught him. "I don't control magic, magic controls...wait, that's not right...AHHH!"
Pain erupted in his chest, white hot and burning. He balled his fists and forced himself forward. Walking in no particular direction, in fact he walked for so long, he got lost, collapsing into a back alley. He didn't know what to do.
Normally, he'd hide in shadows to heal himself, or use his magic to do so. But falling into a shadow right now seemed a little counterproductive, and his magic seemed to be angry with him right now.
He couldn't shadow travel, he couldn't heal himself and he could barely walk. Stranded in an unfamiliar city. Most importantly, starving to death. He'd fight Typhon again for a decent meal.
It got so bad, (Y/N) used all his demigod training, all his tracking skills and all of the training Lupa had given him regarding following a scent all to track down some food. He slid back up the wall and closed his eyes.
This time it wasn't to see the souls around him, or to do anything magical, it was so he might catch the smell of any food in the air. Big mistake, the moment his eyes closed he felt like someone had poured siracha in them.
"Okay! What in the name of the gods is going on!" He said once he was done cursing. Something was definitely wrong with this place, at first he thought it was just a sort of foreign magic. That it was him not being used to the amount of magic here.
But now it seemed like it was actively attacking him, like there was someone playing some kind of trick to see just how much they could annoy him. That feeling wasn't foreign to (Y/N) at all, plenty of gods had made it their business to interfere with him in the past, but it was strange.
He was meant to be here, he could feel it, he knew he was on the right path to finding the scythe. He trusted Hazel's gut, and he trusted his father was as smart as he'd expected. So why was he being punished for coming here?
It occurred to him as a spike of pain tore through him. Hazel's gut...he still had the stupid gemstone in his stomach, after swallowing it like a genius, and for some reason, the city of New Orleans had taken exception to that.
If it were anything else, he would have called it bad luck, but (Y/N) refused to do that, he was still firmly sticking with his belief that any curse based on luck was a fabrication. After all, he had thought he faced a curse of luck in the past, only for it to be arrogance in the end.
He wasn't keen to repeat the mistakes of his past, so he refused to acknowledge that this was in any way Hazel's bad luck curse, he didn't care if he was in the voodoo capital of the world, it was in no way connected to her 'gris gris'. That was that.
"I am not dying like this. I'll never hear the end of it." He said, determined. The stone seemed to pulse with magic in response. His body felt nothing but pain again. He had to get rid of it somehow, curse or not, he wasn't about to die of indigestion after everything he had done.
He could think of only one solution that didn't involve an impromptu abdominal surgery with a sword. He waited, long enough for his whole hand to become shadow, and used that as an opportunity.
He plunged his ghostly fingers into where his stomach should have been, trying to rip the gem free of his stomach. Then he would throw it away and speak of this to nobody for as long as he lived. That was the plan anyway.
The moment he tried to use his powers, his stomach felt like it had been ripped open, this was more than just hunger pains, it was a burning agony. So painful that (Y/N) blacked out. He felt like someone had pulled the pin on a grenade in his stomach.
He slumped over, landing face first on the floor. His next moment, the warnings from Hypnos replayed in his head, he took it as his uncle trying to advise him, and let him know he was going in the right direction.
"The witch sustains it...and in turn...my brother sustains her...you must break this connection...before you face the giant in Alaska. Otherwise all is lost." The memory played in his mind.
The current context of his situation allowed him to focus on it more, he understood. He knew why Circe was hunting the scythe. She had practically told him when she first taunted him over Teach's death.
But how was he going to find the scythe in a city that was literally killing him? "You must journey on your own...for a time...you must find the goddess who holds your life in the balance...she will give you a chance to survive the final encounter." Somnus' voice rang.
"Oh yeah, very helpful." He sighed as he woke, "A goddess that holds my life in the balance, that could be almost any goddess!" (Y/N) ran down the list, thinking of the goddesses who could logically hold his life in the balance right now.
Nyx? No, she wouldn't be too hard to find. Circe? Well, if she was here, she'd have found him by now. Who else could it have been? (Y/N) sat there in his suffering state and thought about it. Hera? No, she had apparently washed her hands of him since he helped Percy over the little Tiber. Typical big three nepotism probably.
It was getting harder and harder to think, he ran don the list of every goddess he had ran into since he was reborn. Gaea, Circe, Khione, the half and half lady from the Hotel, Iris. Juno, Nyx, each of them were powerful, but none really fit the description, except for Gaea or Nyx.
Finding nothing that could have been of any help to him, and being unable to remove the stone from his body, (Y/N) decided he was just going to walk around the city in the hopes that he would get lucky, after all, what was the worst that could happen?
Frank's POV
They stopped at the front porch. As Frank had feared, a loose ring of campfires glowed in the woods, completely surrounding the property, but the house itself seemed untouched.
Grandmother's wind chimes jangled in the night breeze. Her wicker chair sat empty, facing the road. Lights shone through the downstairs windows, but Frank decided against ringing the doorbell.
He didn't know how late it was, or if Grandmother was asleep or even home. Instead he checked the stone elephant statue in the corner—a tiny duplicate of the one in Portland. The spare key was still tucked under its foot.
He hesitated at the door. "What's wrong?" Percy asked. Frank remembered the morning he'd opened this door for the military officer who had told him about his mother. He remembered walking down these steps to her funeral, holding his piece of firewood in his coat for the first time.
He remembered standing here and watching the wolves come out of the woods—Lupa's minions, who would lead him to Camp Jupiter. That seemed so long ago, but it had only been six weeks.
Now he was back. Would Grandmother hug him? Would she say, Frank, thank the gods you've come! I'm surrounded by monsters! More likely she'd scold him, or mistake them for intruders and chase them off with a frying pan.
"Frank?" Hazel asked. "Ella is nervous," the harpy muttered from her perch on the railing. "The elephant—the elephant is looking at Ella." "It'll be fine." Frank's hand was shaking so badly he could barely fit the key in the lock. "Just stay together."
Inside, the house smelled closed-up and musty. Usually the air was scented with jasmine incense, but all the burners were empty. They examined the living room, the dining room, the kitchen.
Dirty dishes were stacked in the sink, which wasn't right. Grandmother's maid came every day—unless she'd been scared off by the giants. Or eaten for lunch, Frank thought. Ella had said the Laistrygonians were cannibals.
He pushed that thought aside. Monsters ignored regular mortals. At least, they usually did. In the parlor, Buddha statues and Taoist immortals grinned at them like psycho clowns. Frank remembered Iris, the rainbow goddess, who'd been dabbling in Buddhism and Taoism.
Frank figured one visit to this creepy old house would cure her of that. Grandmother's large porcelain vases were strung with cobwebs. Again—that wasn't right. She insisted that her collection be dusted regularly.
Looking at the porcelain, Frank felt a twinge of guilt for having destroyed so many pieces the day of the funeral. It seemed silly to him now —getting angry at Grandmother when he had so many others to be angry at: Juno, Gaea, the giants, his dad Mars. Especially Mars.
The fireplace was dark and cold. Hazel hugged her chest as if to keep the piece of firewood from jumping into the hearth. "Is that—" "Yeah," Frank said. "That's it." "That's what?" Percy asked. Hazel's expression was sympathetic, but that just made Frank feel worse.
He remembered how terrified, how repulsed she had looked when he had summoned Gray. "It's the fireplace," he told Percy, which sounded stupidly obvious. "Come on. Let's check upstairs."
The steps creaked under their feet. Frank's old room was the same. None of his things had been touched—his extra bow and quiver (he'd have to grab those later), his spelling awards from school.
Yeah, he probably was the only non-dyslexic spelling champion demigod in the world, as if he weren't enough of a freak already, and his photos of his mom—in her flak jacket and helmet, sitting on a Humvee in Kandahar Province.
In her soccer coach uniform, the season she'd coached Frank's team; in her military dress uniform, her hands on Frank's shoulders, the time she'd visited his school for career day. "Your mother?" Hazel asked gently. "She's beautiful."
Frank couldn't answer. He felt a little embarrassed—a sixteen-year-old guy with a bunch of pictures of his mom. How hopelessly lame was that? But mostly he felt sad. Six weeks since he'd been here. In some ways it seemed like forever.
But when he looked at his mom's smiling face in those photos, the pain of losing her was as fresh as ever. They checked the other bedrooms. The middle two were empty. A dim light flickered under the last door—Grandmother's room.
Frank knocked quietly. No one answered. He pushed open her door. Grandmother lay in bed, looking gaunt and frail, her white hair spread around her face like a basilisk's crown. A single candle burned on the nightstand.
At her bedside sat a large man in beige Canadian Forces fatigues. Despite the gloom, he wore dark sunglasses with blood red light glowing behind the lenses. "Mars," Frank said. The god looked up impassively. "Hey, kid. Come on in. Tell your friends to take a hike."
(Y/N)'s POV
While every step felt like a mile, (Y/N) did actually make it quite far in his endeavor to wander around. He found himself in the French quarter within a couple of minutes, feeling like he was about to pass a kidney stone the size of Sisyphus's boulder.
Like almost every visitor to the city, (Y/N) found himself wandering down Bourbon Street where apparently nobody had gotten the memo that it was near dusk, the party still roared around him. He had to push past crowds of revellers, live music and other street performers.
He soon found himself dizzy after looking over the neon signs, getting horrible memories of Medusa hissing at him. (Y/N) decided it was best to get off the streets. But not before finding some food.
He would murder, literally murder for a beignet right now, or anything that would sate his hunger. In order to avoid keeling over, he had to sort of crab walk to the nearest food stand. "Anything." He said, slamming some money down.
He may have liberated the money from Percy earlier, but nobody needed to worry about that, and besides, (Y/N) needed it more than they did right now as far as he was concerned.
To his surprise a satyr answered him, sliding his money back to him and saying "It's on the house bro. Ever thought of visiting St. Louis Cathedral?" He asked. (Y/N) knew what the satyr was doing.
After smelling a demigod, he was informing (Y/N) that St. Louis Cathedral would have been safe for him to visit, there was probably one of Grover's outposts there, they held a bunch of stuff hidden away, a place to rest, ambrosia, weapons, Advil, you name it.
Grover had set several up all over the country after being named lord of the trees or whatever. It was an extra step in keeping young demigods safe, to avoid what happened to Thalia from happening again.
While (Y/N) did not appreciate being called 'bro' he could have kissed the fuzzy looking man. (Y/N) had an epiphany. He had missed one. A goddess he had ran into, almost literally, last time he had seen a satyr in customer service. The last time someone had told him about a landmark.
At Boreas's place, before he was nearly turned into an ice statue, he ran into the goddess at the lobby. The moment he thought of it, (Y/N) knew he was right. He knew that whoever that woman was, she was the one he was supposed to search for.
He looked up at the satyr and smiled, "Thanks man." But the satyr was gone. As if he were never there, "Trippy." (Y/N) said, swiping a beignet before he began walking off, now with a new purpose and sense of objective.
So now (Y/N) had to track down a random escapee goddess in a city full of magic that was trying to kill him. It couldn't have gotten any worse he told himself. He didn't realize just how wrong he was until he heard a very distinct noise.
He almost froze. Almost. If it hadn't been for his training, he most likely would have panicked, he wasn't far from panic though, especially when he scanned the eyes of the crowds in front of him and saw the man with red eyes. Staring at him with an evil grin.
(Y/N)'s demigod senses kicked into overdrive, the hair on the back of his neck standing bolt upright the moment he heard the howl of wolves off in the distance. Suddenly, energy found it's way into (Y/N).
His body shot up, in fight mode. He disregarded the hunger, and the unease he felt, because just for a moment, as he saw red eyes off in the distance, his body told him to do one thing. "Run!"
Frank's POV
"Frank?" Hazel whispered. "What do mean, Mars? Is your grandmother ... is she okay?" Frank glanced at his friends. "You don't see him?" "See who?" Percy gripped his sword. "Mars? Where?"
The war god chuckled. "Nah, they can't see me. Figured it was better this time. Just a private conversation—father/son, right?" Frank clenched his fists. He counted to ten before he trusted himself to speak.
"Guys, it's...it's nothing. Listen, why don't you take the middle bedrooms?" "Roof," Ella said. "Roofs are good for harpies." "Sure," Frank said in a daze. "There's probably food in the kitchen. Would you give me a few minutes alone with my grandmother? I think she —"
His voice broke. He wasn't sure if he wanted to cry or scream or punch Mars in the glasses—maybe all three. Hazel laid her hand on his arm. "Of course, Frank. Come on, Ella, Percy."
Frank waited until his friends' steps receded. Then he walked into the bedroom and closed the door. "Is it really you?" he asked Mars. "This isn't a trick or illusion or something?" The god shook his head. "You'd prefer it if it wasn't me?"
"Yes," Frank confessed. Mars shrugged. "Can't blame you. Nobody welcomes war—not if they're smart. But war finds everyone sooner or later. It's inevitable." "That's stupid," Frank said. "War isn't inevitable. It kills people. It—" "—took your mom," Mars finished.
Frank wanted to smack the calm look off his face, but maybe that was just Mars's aura making him feel aggressive. He looked down at his grandmother, sleeping peacefully. He wished she would wake up. If anyone could take on a war god, his grandmother could.
"She's ready to die," Mars said. "She's been ready for weeks, but she's holding on for you." "For me?" Frank was so stunned he almost forgot his anger. "Why? How could she know I was coming back? I didn't know!"
"The Laistrygonians outside knew," Mars said. "I imagine a certain goddess told them." Frank blinked. "Juno?" The war god laughed so loudly the windows rattled, but Grandmother didn't even stir.
"Juno? Boar's whiskers, kid. Not Juno! You're Juno's secret weapon. She wouldn't sell you out. No, I meant Gaea. Obviously she's been keeping track of you. I think you worry her more than Percy or Jason or any of the seven. Even the corpse I'd bet."
Frank felt like the room was tilting. He wished there were another chair to sit in. "The seven...you mean in the ancient prophecy, the Doors of Death? I'm one of the seven? And Jason, and—" "Yes, yes." Mars waved his hand impatiently.
"Come on, boy. You're supposed to be a good tactician. Think it through! Obviously your friends are being groomed for that mission too, assuming you make it back from Alaska alive. Juno aims to unite the Greeks and Romans and send them against the giants. She believes it's the only way to stop Gaea."
Mars shrugged, clearly unconvinced of the plan. "Anyway, Gaea doesn't want you to be one of the seven. Percy Jackson...she believes she can control him. All of the others have weaknesses she can exploit. But you—you worry her."
"She'd rather kill you right away. That's why she summoned the Laistrygonians. They've been here for days, waiting." Frank shook his head. Was Mars playing some kind of trick? No way would a goddess be worried about Frank, especially when there was somebody like Percy Jackson to worry about.
"No weaknesses?" he asked. "I'm nothing but weaknesses. My life depends on a piece of wood!" Mars grinned. "You're selling yourself short. Anyway, Gaea has these Laistrygonians convinced that if they eat the last member of your family,""
"That being you—they'll inherit your family gift. Whether that's true or not, I don't know. But the Laistrygonians are hungry to try." Frank's stomach twisted into a knot. Gray had killed six of the ogres, but judging from the campfires around the property, there were dozens more—all waiting to cook Frank for breakfast.
"I'm going to throw up," he said. "No, you're not." Mars snapped his fingers, and Frank's queasiness disappeared. "Battle jitters. Happens to everybody." "But my grandmother—" "Yeah, she's been waiting to talk to you."
"The ogres have left her alone so far. She's the bait, see? Now that you're here, I imagine they've already smelled your presence. They'll attack in the morning." "Get us out of here, then!" Frank demanded. "Snap your fingers and blow up the cannibals."
"Ha! That would be fun. But I don't fight my kids' battles for them. The Fates have clear ideas about what jobs belong to gods, and what has to be done by mortals. This is your quest, kid."
"And, uh, in case you haven't figured it out yet, your spear won't be ready to use again for twenty-four hours, so I hope you've learned how to use the family gift. Otherwise, you're gonna be breakfast for cannibals."
The family gift. Frank had wanted to talk with Grandmother about it, but now he had no one to consult but Mars. He stared at the war god, who was smiling with absolutely no sympathy. "Periclymenus." Frank sounded out the word carefully, like a spelling-bee challenge.
"He was my ancestor, a Greek prince, an Argonaut. He died fighting Hercules." Mars rolled his hand in a "go on" gesture. "He had an ability that helped him in combat," Frank said. "Some sort of gift from the gods. My mom said he fought like a swarm of bees."
Mars laughed. "True enough. What else?" "Somehow, the family got to China. I think, like in the days of the Roman Empire, one of Pericylmenus's descendants served in a legion. My mom used to talk about a guy named Seneca Gracchus,"
"but he also had a Chinese name, Sung Guo. I think—well, this is the part I don't know, but Reyna always said there were many lost legions. The Twelfth founded Camp Jupiter. Maybe there was another legion that disappeared into the east."
Mars clapped silently. "Not bad, kid. Ever heard of the Battle of Carrhae? Huge disaster for the Romans. They fought these guys called the Parthians on the eastern border of the empire. Fifteen thousand Romans died. Ten thousand more were taken prisoner."
"And one of the prisoners was my ancestor Seneca Gracchus?" "Exactly," Mars agreed. "The Parthians put the captured legionnaires to work, since they were pretty good fighters. Except then Parthia got invaded again from the other direction—"
"By the Chinese," Frank guessed. "And the Roman prisoners got captured again." "Yeah. Kind of embarrassing. Anyway, that's how a Roman legion got to China. The Romans eventually put down roots and built a new hometown called—"
"Li-Jien," Frank said. "My mother said that was our ancestral home. Li-Jien. Legion." Mars looked pleased. "Now you're getting it. And old Seneca Gracchus, he had your family's gift.""My mom said he fought dragons," Frank remembered. "She said he was...he was the most powerful dragon of all."
"He was good," Mars admitted. "Not good enough to avoid the bad luck of his legion, but good. He settled in China, passed the family gift to his kids, and so on. Eventually your family emigrated to North America and got involved with Camp Jupiter—"
"Full circle," Frank finished. "Juno said I would bring the family full circle." "We'll see." Mars nodded at his grandmother. "She wanted to tell you all this herself, but I figured I'd cover some of it since the old bird hasn't got much strength. So do you understand your gift?"
Frank hesitated. He had an idea, but it seemed crazy—even crazier than a family moving from Greece to Rome to China to Canada. He didn't want to say it aloud. He didn't want to be wrong and have Mars laugh at him. "I—I think so. But against an army of those ogres—"
"Yeah, it'll be tough." Mars stood and stretched. "When your grandmother wakes up in the morning, she'll offer you some help. Then I imagine she'll die." "What? But I have to save her! She can't just leave me."
"She's lived a full life," Mars said. "She's ready to move on. Don't be selfish." "Selfish!" "The old woman only stuck around this long out of a sense of duty. Your mom was the same way. That's why I loved her. She always put her duty first, ahead of everything. Even her life."
"Even me." Mars took off his sunglasses. Where his eyes should've been, miniature spheres of fire boiled like nuclear explosions. "Self-pity isn't helpful, kid. It isn't worthy of you. Even without the family gift, your mom gave you your most important traits—bravery, loyalty, brains."
"Now you've got to decide how to use them. In the morning, listen to your grandmother. Take her advice. You can still free Thanatos and save the camp." "And leave my grandmother behind to die."
"Life is only precious because it ends, kid. Take it from a god. You mortals don't know how lucky you are." "Yeah," Frank muttered. "Real lucky." Mars laughed—a harsh metallic sound. "Your mom used to tell me this Chinese proverb. Eat bitter—"
"Eat bitter, taste sweet," Frank said. "I hate that proverb." "But it's true. What do they call it these days—no pain, no gain? Same concept. You do the easy thing, the appealing thing, the peaceful thing, mostly it turns out sour in the end."
"But if you take the hard path—ah, that's how you reap the sweet rewards. Duty. Sacrifice. They mean something." Frank was so disgusted he could hardly speak. This was his father? Sure, Frank understood about his mom being a hero.
He understood she'd saved lives and been really brave. But she'd left him alone. That wasn't fair. It wasn't right. "I'll be going," Mars promised. "But first—you said you were weak. That's not true. You want to know why Juno spared you, Frank? Why that piece of wood didn't burn yet?"
"It's because you've got a role to play. You think you're not as good as the other Romans. You think Percy Jackson is better than you." "He is," Frank grumbled. "He battled you and won." Mars shrugged.
"Maybe. Maybe so. But every hero has a fatal flaw. Percy Jackson? He's too loyal to his friends. He can't give them up, not for anything. He was told that, years ago. And someday soon, he's going to face a sacrifice he can't make."
"(L/N), he's vengeful. So vengeful he'll plunge himself into hell just to get what he think's he's owed. Died for it once. My bet is, he'll do it again. One day, he's gonna run into someone he can't beat, one day, it'll cost him."
"Without you, Frank—without your sense of duty—they're both going to fail. The whole war will go sideways, and Gaea will destroy our world." Frank shook his head. He couldn't hear this. "War is a duty," Mars continued.
"The only real choice is whether you accept it, and what you fight for. The legacy of Rome is on the line—five thousand years of law, order, civilization. The gods, the traditions, the cultures that shaped the world you live in: it's all going to crumble, Frank, unless you win this. I think that's worth fighting for. Think about it."
"What's mine?" Frank asked. Mars raised an eyebrow. "Your what?" "Fatal flaw. You said all heroes have one." The god smiled dryly. "You gotta answer that yourself, Frank. But you're finally asking the right questions. Now, get some sleep. You need the rest."
The god waved his hand. Frank's eyes felt heavy. He collapsed, and everything went dark. "Fai," said a familiar voice, harsh and impatient. Frank blinked his eyes. Sunlight streamed into the room.
"Fai, get up. As much as I would like to slap that ridiculous face of yours, I am in no condition to get out of bed." "Grandmother?" She came into focus, looking down at him from the bed. He lay sprawled on the floor.
Someone had put a blanket over him during the night and a pillow under his head, but he had no idea how it had happened. "Yes, my silly ox." Grandmother still looked horribly weak and pale, but her voice was as steely as ever.
"Now, get up. The ogres have surrounded the house. We have much to discuss if you and your friends are to escape here alive."
(Y/N)'s POV
(Y/N) was used to running from wolves. They didn't frighten him any more. His time with the Wolf Queen Lupa had driven that fear out of him by force. In fact it almost felt natural for him at this point.
Lupa had made running from certain death half of his training at the wolf house. In fact more than that, since he wasn't entirely himself back then, and she punished him for it. She only spoke to his roman half, and attempted to kill the other.
The wolf queen didn't take kindly to some random Greek guy shadow travelling into her territory and demanding to be taken to new Rome. She made that displeasure known by hunting him for hours on end, the pain back then dwarfed this one by a large margin.
So running from these wolves wasn't what made him panic. It wasn't even the fact he still felt so weak, or that this city was out to get him. He still felt like his strength was being sapped. That he could try to ignore.
What he couldn't was what concerned him, the hundreds of mortals that roamed the streets around him, and that he didn't doubt the red eyed wolves would tear through them to get at him.
Lycaon himself was nowhere to be seen, the self proclaimed king of wolves had disappeared like smoke the moment (Y/N) had taken his eyes off him, it was a mistake he was still paying for, (Y/N) now had to check every corner and every street for the deranged wolf man.
He had to get off the streets, that was his first course of action, he hobbled down the streets, trying to weave and bob through the crowds of partygoers fast enough that he wouldn't be caught, still holding his tasty looking free meal in his hand.
He had decided it was about time for him to heed the advise of the helpful satyr and to head to the cathedral, knowing if he made it there perhaps the satyrs present there may of been some help to him. But he wasn't making much progress.
He half expected Lycaon to be breathing down his neck any moment, he was surprised the wolf man could hold back is urge to hunt for this long, that was another worry, it meant that there was something more important Lycaon had to do.
(Y/N) could only guess at what that was, but he knew it was nothing good, he scanned the skies momentarily, hoping that he would not see any spectral figure searching for him. Only problem was, it was so dark he couldn't tell regardless.
So, knowing that he may have to at least attempt to break into a sprint at some point, (Y/N) took the opportunity to ease his hunger a little, and went to bite into the food, to have some reprieve from this hellish trip. Only for it to be knocked from his hands.
"This city can bite me!" Was his first thought as he watched it head towards the floor in what felt like slow motion, only for a sense of relief to swallow him whole when he saw nimble, manicured fingers pluck it from the air before disaster struck.
He looked up at his savior, ready to got to war for her, until she brought the pastry to her mouth and took a small bite. "Unlucky." She said, with a wink, it was this expression that should have tipped him off.
As the same woman from the lobby at Boreas's place smiled at him, (Y/N) should have been relieved, he should have considered the food a small fee for him finding her, he should have asked the goddess her name.
Those thoughts were chased out of his head, the wolves were no longer his concern, he became more focused on a form of ungodly violence he was going to perpetrate against the woman who just stole his food from him. "Who the f-"
His insult didn't make it out of his mouth before he was lurched off his feet, pulled away by something very painful, (Y/N) was dragged backwards, he looked down and saw his leg was caught in the jaws of a wolf, like it was caught in a trap.
He was dragged into a nearby alleyway, skidding on his hands and knees as he tried to avoid it. Eventually he managed to pivot his body and kick the wolf in the nose, it barely budged, so he struck at it twice more with his free leg, and eventually, it relented.
When he managed to find his way to his feet, he saw two wolves with black fur glaring at him with their crimson eyes, growling. The one who had dragged him here, and another of it's larger, timber wolf looking buddies.
As one raised it's head, presumably to howl and alert Lycaon to their location, (Y/N) knew he had to stop it, he threw Glimmer at the dog, but it's comrade caught the dagger in it's teeth before dropping the dagger at it's feet like a demented game of fetch.
(Y/N) knew he only had one option. Pushing himself and forcing his magic to work, even just for a moment, was difficult, as Lou Ellen had taught him, he imagined a well of magic deep in his chest, he imagined it flaring up like a burning fire, and thrust his hand forward.
Green flame illuminated the sides of the houses as it shot out his palm, into the wolf, which had it's head engulfed in flame and collapsed a moment later. When (Y/N) felt no pain, and his magic worked as expected, he was bewildered.
He half expected that not to work, and for him to be the one engulfed in flame. But his body felt like it always had, "What the Hades is going on in this place?" He had time to think before the second wolf lunged.
(Y/N) was unbothered by the second attack, much more confident after his success with magic he knew less of, he imagined his shadow beside him launching his silver kukri out of itself into the wolf. He waited for a moment, and almost panicked until a flash of silver passed him.
...As well as the wolf. The blade spun like a blender, but missed terribly, so far away from the wolf that it didn't even flinch. It flew past the beast and indented itself about five inches into the brick wall down the street.
If (Y/N)'s reflexes weren't so good, he would have died there, the wolf landed on top of him, fangs aimed at his neck, but (Y/N) managed to move quick enough to jam his forearm into the mouth of the wolf.
Is it a stupid idea to put your arm in the mouth of something trying to eat you? Yeah, is it better than your neck? Absolutely, hurt like the dickens though. Before his arm was ripped off, (Y/N) screamed in pain and instinctively punched the wolf with his free hand.
Unfortunately, his hand was still made of shadow, meaning, it wasn't much of an impact. As the beast started thrashing its head to do more damage, (Y/N) figured he'd just stick with what worked.
He set his whole body on fire, giving the wolf some serious heartburn as it was lit ablaze from the mouth outward. It's grip loosened and (Y/N) kicked it off, but unfortunately, as he did this, a shrill howl tumbled out the wolf's mouth. (Y/N) heard ten more from off in the distance.
"Wonderful." (Y/N) said, stumbling to his feet and running as best he could deeper into the maze of alleyways in front of him, searching for the food thief, now two weapons down, injured even further, and worst of all, beignet-less.