With my brilliant choice to hurl a burrito at the face of a Skeleton- thanks to Grover since I remembered that hilarious scene in the book- the snack bar descended into pandemonium as kids began to hurl burritos and other food at one another.
The skeletons kept trying to aim for us, but it proved to be difficult- if not downright impossible- with so much food and drink flying around.
Thalia spartan kicked a skeleton that was coming up back down the stairs, and Uta tripped the other which send it tumbling backwards. We hurried past them on the stairs, dodging the food being hurled around before we burst outside.
"What do we do now?" Uta asked. "They're going to catch up. There's ten of them and six of us- which isn't bad... But the only one here who can actually kill them is Yuno, and they're no doubt going to be gunning for him."
"And I don't even know how I did it before," I told them. "I don't know if I can actively trigger it again."
We decided to put some more distance between us and the skeletons and find a place it would be hard to surround us, ending up by the bronze winged statues.
The skeletons burst out and began to make their ways towards us, many of them covered in various kinds of food. Some even had burritos lodged inside of their ribs. They drew their batons, advancing towards us.
I noticed Penny out the corner of my eye, her eyes locked onto the toes of the bronze statues. I looked at them too... They were unnaturally bright.
"Bright," Penny murmured. "Their toes are really bright."
"Not really the time, Penny," Thalia told her, readying her spear and shield.
But Penny continued to stare as I readied my scythe. I knew she was putting the dots together, the hints she'd obtained along the way slowly fitting together in her mind like a puzzle piece.
"Thalia, pray to your dad," Penny told her suddenly.
Thalia cast a glare at her. "He never answers," she said in an angry voice.
"Just this once," she pleaded. "Ask for help! I think... I think the statues can give us some luck."
Six Skeletons raised their guns. The other four were charging at us with their batons. The shadows licked at my feet and my body began to heat up as I accessed my fire abilities.
"Do it!" Penny said- no long asking, but ordering.
"Fuck you!" Thalia spat. "He won't answer!"
"This time is different!"
"Who the fuck says so!?"
"Athena! ... I think!"
Thalia scowled hard, clearly thinking Penny had gone crazy.
"Thalia, humour her," I told her.
"... I swear to dad, if this doesn't work, I'm never going to let you hear the end of this in Elysium," she murmured. She closed her eyes, her lips slowly moving in a silent prayer.
Nothing happened.
I took a deep breath, and the shadows began to rise behind me. Uta's eyes narrowed, and I saw her pupils dilating, preparing to merge her Conqueror's Haki with her song to see if that would do anything.
Suddenly, shadows fell over us- a massive pair of bronze wings.
The Skeletons were knocked aside by the statue's wing, swept away and crashing against the wall. The other skeletons opened fire, but the two angels stood in front of us and folded their wings like shields, defending us from the onslaught of bullets.
Then, the sound of clicking guns was heard. The wings lashed out, sending them spiralling down the road.
"Fuck me, it feels so good to finally stand up," the first angel spoke, groaning. His voice sounded rusty, like he hadn't had a drink in a LONG time.
"Just look at my toes," the other grunted. "What were those tourists thinking, rubbing our toes giving them luck? We're a gift to Zeus, not Tyche!"
The Skeletons weren't just idle while the angels complained. They were putting themselves back together as they got up slowly, their eyes locked on us with a vengeance.
"Could you get us out of here!?" Thalia yelled at them.
They both looked at her. "Zeus's kid?"
"Yes!"
"Could I get a please, Miss Zeus's kid?" one of them asked.
"Oh, fuck you- please then!"
The angels chuckled and looked at each other with a smirk.
"Could use a stretch... Small problem? There's six of you, and we only have four arms between us."
"Take the other four," I told them. "Uta, with me."
Uta quickly moved to my side as I put on my Duel Disk, the angels grabbing the others and soaring up into the air with them.
"I summon Sin of Pride - Superbia!" I declared, calling forth the giant, dark creature with rainbow wings. It offered its back to us to climb on, the Skeletons rapidly approaching.
Mere seconds later, we took off into the sky, rapidly gaining on the angels. Both of them looked back, but promptly ignored Superbia once they realised that he had some relation to me given Uta and I were following on its back.
"Tell me when it's over," I heard Thalia say, her eyes sealed shut. She was clinging to the statue's arm like it was the most important thing in the world, even though he had a very secure grip. Penny was being held in the other arm.
"You'll be fine!" I called out to Thalia. "Just think about all the monsters you're going to take up your pent up aggression on!"
"You're not helping, Yuno!"
I just snickered in amusement.
"We are in the Sierras," Zoe noted as we soared over snowy mountain peaks. "At this speed, we should be in San Francisco in a few hours."
"Hey, hey, Frisco!" One angel grinned in excitement. "Chuck, we could visit those guys at the Mechanics Monument again! They know how to party!"
"Oh, man, I am there!" The other angel shared his grin.
Nobody decided to question that, as Thalia and Penny spoke during the flight. It was a long flight, after all, several hours. The only reason we were even flying right now was because Zeus had given an indirect 'you can fly' for the sake of the quest- otherwise Bianca and Penny would have been blasted out of the sky.
Penny mentioned about how she'd run into a mortal during her little side quest, one who could see through the Mist. She even mentioned her name- Rachel Elizabeth Dare. The girl who would, one day, become the new Oracle of Camp Half-Blood.
'Do you think Apollo would be pissed at me for seducing her before she became the oracle, thus expelling her from becoming it?' I asked my spirits idly.
"That's evil... Do it," Tez told me with an evil cackle.
"Okay seriously, why are you joking about fucking other girls when you have me?" Pandora whined.
"I do slightly agree, just fuck her already so she'll stop whining. Maybe once you screw her, she'll calm down."
I just snorted, leave it to Tez to want me to fuck Pandora just so she'd calm down with her slightly yandere tendencies.
Finally, after hours of flying, we finally came upon San Francisco. It was a beautiful city to be sure, surrounded by lush green hills and fog... Likely a physical manifestation of the Mist that even mortals could perceive, given the amount of efforts the Gods went to separate the two camps. If my eyes were able to see through the mist, then I might have even been able to see Camp Jupiter given how high we were.
We ended up touching down by the Embarcadero building. It was early in the morning, so there weren't many people around- but a homeless guy did scream when he saw the angels and running away, raving about 'angels from Mars.'
The angels flew away to go and party with their friends, leaving us alone and contemplating our next move.
"Right, so what now?" Penny asked. "We're on the west coast... Artemis is going to be somewhere around this area, right? But... What do we do now? We don't know what monster she was tracking, we don't know where we're supposed to go from here..." She scrunched her nose. "That line of the prophecy was weird enough as is... 'Bane of Olympus, Power Declined'? What does that even mean?"
"For now, we should find out what the monster is," Zoe said. "Milady must have left behind something we can use to find her, but the monster is another matter. We need to know what exactly it was that she was hunting... With a name like 'Bane of Olympus,' we need to understand just what was so dangerous that she would not even take the Hunt with her."
"Okay, but how do we find that out?" Bianca voiced.
"Nereus," Uta answered. "That's what Apollo told Penny, right? We need to find Nereus."
"Oh, right," Penny nodded. "Sorry, I'd genuinely forgotten all about that... The old man of the sea is what people call him, right? If I catch him, he will answer a single question no matter what it is, right?"
"That's right," Thalia nodded. "So, you catch him, make him cough up about the Bane."
"Old Nereus..." Zoe made a face, like she was revolted just thinking about him.
"I'm gonna assume you know him?" Thalia asked, almost amused by how disgusted Zoe looked.
"My mother was a Water Goddess. Yes, I do know him... Unfortunately. And he is not hard to find, much to my dismay..." She grimaced and shook her head. "Thou need only follow the smell."
"What does that mean?" Penny asked, looking a bit uncomfortable at the idea.
Hm... I wondered, did Penny have flashbacks to her stepfather's smell when smelling something bad? A strong aversion to bad smell... It wouldn't surprise me.
"Come," Zoe shook her head in resignation. "I will show thee."
We began to follow her, and I decided to ask, "So… On a scale of one to ten, how bad is this smell going to fuck with us?"
"I believe the answer to this question is... Yes."
"Great," I smiled sarcastically.
We stopped at a Goodwill drop box... Penny was the one with the best chance of catching Nereus- since I sure as fuck wasn't getting my nice duel disk wet- and so we had to dress her up like she was a homeless person. Clothes that were too big, barely held with belts- wearing a floppy rainbow hat with bright sneakers.
The girls all looked at her with pure pity that she had to dress up like that, I just looked amused... Especially because I knew they were amused when it was Percy Jackson dressed like this rather than Penny.
"Why am I dressing like this again?" Penny asked as Zoe took the lead, taking us back down to the waterfront.
"To blend in," she answered as we finally stopped. She pointed down to the pier, where a bunch of homeless people were huddled together in blankets and waiting for the soup kitchen to open for lunch.
"He will be down there somewhere," Zoe told her. "He never travels far from the water."
"How will she know which one is him?" Bianca frowned. "I mean... Not to be rude, but they all look the same..."
"Just keep your nose alert," Zoe answered. "Sneak up, act homeless, try to blend him. You'll know him by smell. He'll smell..." She paused. "... Different."
"And once I find him?" She asked.
"Grab him and don't let go. He will try to get free, and he'll do anything to get free. Do not let go, force him to tell thee about the monster."
"We'll be rooting for you," Thalia tried to encourage her.
What followed next was the most hilarious ten minutes of my entire time in this world as I watched Penny fighting and struggling against Nereus, diving into the water with him as he kept changing shapes to get her off- and failed every time.
Finally, he collapsed on the edge of the boat docks, and we rushed to meet them there.
"You got him!" Zoe exclaimed.
"Oh, great, an audience for my humiliation," Nereus bemoaned. "Bah, fine! The normal deal, I suppose... You let me go if I answer your question. But remember, you ONLY get one."
Penny looked very conflicted... It was obvious that she wanted to ask about Annabeth, find out where she was and how to get to her... But she swallowed her desires, and finally asked, "Tell me where to find the monster that could bring an end to the Gods. The one Artemis was hunting."
The old man grinned slowly, showing off his green teeth. "Oh, that's easy," he pointed. "He's right there."
Penny looked around. "Where?"
"The deal is complete!" He laughed, transforming into a goldfish and diving into the water, swimming away.
"Hey, no fair!" Penny complained.
"No, wait, what is that?" Thalia asked.
"MOOOOOOOO!"
Penny looked down at the cow-serpent-fish swimming next to the dock.
"..." She connected the dots in her mind. "You have got to be fucking kidding me."
"No, Miss Jackson," a male voice with a heavy French accent spoke. "Zis is no joke."
The Ophiotaurus submerged, and we all turned to see Doctor Thorn- the Manticore- grinning at us wickedly. His dual coloured eyes gleaming with sadistic intentions.
"Ah..." I smiled slowly as the shadows licked at my feet. "Another Victim to add to the kill count."