I awoke to Annabeth shaking my shoulder.

"Wha?"

"Land," she said. "Miami, I think. But the hippocampi are acting funny…"

Sure enough, the fish-horses had slowed down. They were whinnying and swimming in circles, sniffing at the water. They weren't happy.

I could tell what they were thinking, alright.

"This is as far as they'll go. The water is too polluted. We'll need to swim the rest of the way."

We weren't thrilled about that, but we said our goodbyes.

Tyson unfastened the makeshift saddlebag from Rainbow containing his toolkit and whatever else he had salvaged from the CSS Birmingham. He hugged Rainbow and fed him a soggy mango Tyson had picked up from the island.

Once the hippocampi had disappeared, we swam for shore. The waves pushed us ashore, and just like that, we were back in the mortal world.

---

We wandered the cruise docks, pushing through crowds of mortals who were here on vacation.

If any of them noticed us, a bunch of dripping wet kids who looked like they'd had the crap beat out of them, they didn't let on.

The mist had once again obscured Tyson's eye, making it seem to any passing mortal as though he had two. Grover had put his cap and sneakers back on. The fleece had transformed into a red and gold high school letter jacket.

Annabeth ran over to the nearest newsstand and grabbed a copy of the Miami Herald.

"Well, fuck. June 18th. We've been away from Camp for 10 days!"

"That's impossible," Clarisse said.

But we all knew it wasn't; time travelled differently in magical places.

"Thalia's tree must be almost dead," Grover moaned. "We need to get the fleece to Camp by tonight!"

Clarisse slumped down on the curb. "How are we gonna manage that?" She sounded despondent. "We're hundreds of miles away from Camp, with no money and no ride." She sighed. "It's just like the Oracle said, Jackson. It's your fault! If you hadn't butted in-"

"Percy's fault?" Annabeth growled. "Why you little sh-"

"Stop," I said.

I had forgotten, but this was Clarisse's quest. I tried to think about it from her perspective. What if I had been on my quest and two other demigods had just butted in? I grimaced.

I thought about when I'd overheard Clarisse talking with Ares. Ares couldn't give a single shit about Camp, but if Clarisse had made him look bad…

I had a brain wave.

"Clarisse," I said, "what did the Oracle say, exactly?"

She looked up, scowling. At first I thought she would just insult me, but when she opened her mouth, she instead recited her prophecy:

"You shall sail the iron ship with warriors of bone,

You shall find what you seek and make it your own,

But despair for your life entombed within stone,

And fail without friends, to fly home alone."

"Ouch," Grover said.

"No no, wait," I said. I dug around in my pockets, managing to pull a drachma from deep in my back pocket, but not cash. "Damnit, nothing. Does anyone have any cash?"

Annabeth and Grover shook their heads. Clarisse pulled a soggy confederate dollar out of her pocket and sighed.

"Cash?" Tyson said. "Like… green paper?"

I looked at him. "Uh… yeah."

"Like the kind in the duffle bags?"

I nodded. "Yeah, but we lost those days a-"

Tyson pulled a Ziploc bag full of cash from his saddle pack.

"Tyson!" I exclaimed. "How? Where?"

"Thought it was a feed bag for Rainbow. Found it floating in the ocean, but only paper inside. Sorry."

I smiled. Tyson handed me the bag. It was filled with cash, it had to be at least 3 hundred dollars.

I ran to the curb and grabbed a taxi that was letting out a family of sunburnt tourists.

"Clarisse!" I yelled. "Come on, you're going to the airport. Annabeth, give her the fleece."

They looked at me, stunned, as I took the fleece jacket from Annabeth, tucked the cash in the pocket, and handed it to Clarisse.

Clarisse said, "you would let me-"

"It's your quest. Besides, I can't fly, and we only have enough for one ticket. That's what the Oracle meant. You would fail without friends, which meant you'd need help, but then you'd fly home alone. You need to get the fleece back safely right now."

She glanced at me, then at the fleece in her arms, then at the taxi. She smiled. She jumped into the cab. "You can count on me, Jackson. I won't fail."

"Not failing would be good, Clarisse."

The cab sped out, taking Clarisse, and the Camp's salvation, with it.

"Percy," Annabeth said. "That was incredibly-"

"Kind of you," Grover said.

"Insane," Annabeth said. "You're leaving the fate of the entire camp up to Clarisse?"

I nodded. "It's her quest. She should finish it."

"Percy is nice," Tyson said.

"She's too nice," Annabeth said, but I could tell she was a little impressed, or at least surprised, by my actions. I was proud of that.

"Come on," I said. "We need to find another way home. Maybe I can call my mom or something."

I turned around to find a sword point at my throat.

"Hey cuz," Luke said. "What's up with your hair?"

I scowled. "It grew."

He laughed.

The bear-men thugs appeared on either side. One grabbed Annabeth and Grover, and the other tried to grab Tyson, but he knocked him back into a pile of luggage.

"Tell your giant to back down, Percy, or Oreius will bash your friends' heads in."

The bear grinned and lifted them up, kicking and screaming.

"What the fuck do you want, Luke?"

He smirked. "Why, I want to extend my hospitality, of course."

He gestured toward the end of the pier, where the largest cruise ship was the Princess Andromeda.

---

We were herded aboard. They threw us down onto the aft deck, near a swimming pool. A few dozen of Luke's goons, monsters and half-bloods, stood in a ring around us.

"So," Luke said, "the fleece. Where is it?"

He looked us over, prodding us with his sword, poking Grover's jeans.

"Hey! That's real goat fur under there!"

Luke grinned. "Sorry, old friend."

Grover bleated. "Some old friend."

"Maybe you can't hear me through your new head of hair, Jackson. Where is the fleece?"

"Not here, asshole," I said. I probably should have stayed quiet, but I wanted some satisfaction from running his plans. "We sent it ahead."

Luke's grin vanished. "How did you…" he scowled. "Clarisse! You would trust her-"

"Of course," I said. "She's a hundred times the hero you are."

Luke growled. "Agrius! Go below, get my steed. I need to get to the airport immediately."

"But boss-"

"Just do it."

The bear-twin gulped, but complied, lumbering down the stairs.

Luke scowled, and began pacing. Some of his goons shifted uncomfortably. I guess they hadn't seen him so unhinged before.

I began to think, maybe I could use his anger. Get him to talk, let everyone in on just how crazy his plans were.

I look at the pool. At one end, the one closest to us, was a fountain, spraying water into the air and making a fine mist.

Time for another brilliantly dumb Percy idea.

"You were playing with us all along, weren't you?"

Luke turned to look at me.

"You wanted us to bring you the fleece so you didn't have to go to the trouble of getting it yourself."

"Of course, you idiot. And just like last summer, you went and messed everything up!"

"Oh you fucking traitor," I said. I dug the drachma back out of my pocket, gripping it tightly in my hand. I chucked it at his head.

As expected, he dodged. It sailed cleanly past him into the spray from the fountain.

I hoped my prayer would be accepted in silence. Oh Iris, accept my offering.

"You tricked all of us, Luke. Even DIONYSUS at CAMP HALF-BLOOD!" I shouted.

Behind Luke, the fountain shimmered, but I needed everyone's attention on me, so I pulled out Riptide.

Luke sneered. "This is no time for mindless heroics, Percy. Put away your sword, or I'll have you killed sooner rather than later."

I scowled. "Who poisoned Thalia's tree, traitor?"

"I did, of course, you idiot. I told you days ago. I used elder python venom from the depths of Tartarus!"

"So Chiron had nothing to do with it, yeah?"

"Ha! Of course not! He wouldn't have the guts."

"You call that guts? Betraying your friends? Endangering Camp?"

Luke pointed his sword at me. "You don't know the half of it, Percy. I was planning on letting you have the fleece… once I was done with it, of course."

I hesitated. Why would he let us have the fleece? He must be lying, but I needed to keep his attention.

"You wanted to use it to heal Kronos," I said.

"Yes! The fleece would have sped up the healing process tenfold. But you haven't stopped us, Percy, just slowed us down."

"And so you poisoned Thalia's tree, betrayed all your friends, set us all up, all to help Kronos destroy the gods!"

Luke grit his teeth. "You already know this. Why do you keep asking me?"

I smirked. "Because I want everyone in our audience to hear."

Luke's eyes widened. "What audience?"

He turned around. His goons looked at the fountain. They let out a collective gasp.

Above the pool, shimmering in the mist from the fountain, was an image of Dionysus and the rest of Camp, all sitting to eat dinner.

"Well," Dionysus said. "Some unplanned, albeit mediocre, dinner entertainment."

"Mr. D, you heard him." I paused. "You all heard what he said. The poisoning wasn't Chiron's fault."

Mr. D sighed, "I suppose not."

"The message could be a trick," Tantalus suggested, but he was more focused on trying to catch a cheeseburger.

"I doubt it," Dionysus said. "I suppose I will have to reinstate the old horse as activities director. And besides, I do miss his pinochle games."

Tantalus finally managed to grab his cheeseburger.

"I got it," he croaked.

He stared at it in amazement as if it were the largest diamond ever.

"Your services are no longer required," Dionysus continued, ignoring what Tantalus said.

"What? But-"

"You may return to the Underworld, Tantalus. You are dismissed."

"What? Noooooo!" Tantalus tried to bring the burger to his mouth, but he dissolved into smoke, the burger falling back to his plate.

The Camp exploded in cheers.

Luke yelled in rage, slashing his sword through the message, cutting the connection.

But my plan was already done.

"Kronos was right, Perseus Jackson. You're an unreliable weapon, a loose cannon. You need to be replaced."

I had no idea what he meant.

One of his men blew a whistle, and several dozen more monsters and half-bloods burst onto the deck, surrounding us.

Luke smirked. "You won't be leaving this boat alive."

I shifted nervously. "One on one," I challenged. "What are you so afraid of?"

Luke scowled, his lips curling. The men who were about to kill us shifted, waiting for his order.

Just then, the bear-man, Agrius, burst onto the deck, holding the leash of a flying horse. It was the first time I'd ever seen a pure black pegasus. The beautiful stallion bucked, and I could understand his thoughts. He was thinking several unsavoury things about Agrius and Luke.

"Sir!" The bear called. "Your steed is ready!"

Luke kept his eyes trained on me.

"I told you last summer, Percy. You can't bait me into a fight like Ares."

"And you keep avoiding one with me. Afraid I'm gonna kick your ass in front of your men?"

He scowled. He knew I'd trapped him. If he backed down, he would look weak. If he fought me, he would lose valuable time going after Clarisse.

As for me? Best I could hope was to distract him, give Annabeth time to think of some plan to escape. Unfortunately, Luke was a very good sword-fighter.

"I'll kill you, nice and quick," he said. "No sense wasting time."

He whistled, and one of his men tossed him a shield. He grinned at me.

"Luke!" Annabeth called. "At least give her a shield."

"No can do, Annabeth. You bring your own equipment to this party."

That shield was going to be a problem. There were just more options when you had that sort of defence.

Like lunged and nearly skewered me immediately. It turned out, my new smaller size was a benefit. Less of me for him to hit.

I spun out of the way, before lunging at Luke with a strike, but he deflected with his shield.

"My my, Percy. You're out of practice."

I scowled. "A part of it is that I'm smaller than I'm used to."

That confused him enough for me to get another strike in, but he managed to dodge. He jabbed at me, but I leapt backwards.

He jabbed again, and I twirled out of the way, jumping into the pool.

I felt a large surge of strength. I summoned the water to me. I burst out the water, throwing as much as I could at Luke.

He was knocked backwards. He spat out some chlorinated water and glared at me. I tried to strike again, but he rolled away and quickly got to his feet.

"Putting us by the pool was a great idea, Luke."

He scowled, no doubt inwardly cursing that decision.

I attacked and sliced his shield, but it barely fazed him. He dropped and jabbed at my thigh. Only, he missed. He caught my jeans, cutting them open. I lunged backwards.

Luke continued to come at me. I feinted to the left, but Luke anticipated that. He managed to deflect my strike and jabbed me in my sword arm.

I dropped Riptide and fell to the ground. I rolled out of the way as he slashed at me again. My arm felt like it was on fire.

"One more thing, before you die, Percy." He looked at the bear twin, Oreius, who was holding Annabeth and Grover. "You may eat your dinner now, Oreius."

The bear twin laughed, lifting my friends up.

Then all Hades broke loose.

An arrow sprouted from Oreius' mouth. He crumpled to the deck, a look of shock adorning his face.

"Brother!" Agrius let go of the pegasus, who promptly kicked him in the head and flew away over Miami.

For a moment, everyone watched in shock as the bear twins dissolved into dust.

Then there was a loud thundering of hooves, and several dozen centaurs burst onto the deck.

"Yeah, baby! Party!"

"Ponies!" Tyson exclaimed with delight.

My mind was having trouble processing the new sight. Chiron was among the centaurs, but his relatives were wildly different from him. There were centaurs with bows, centaurs with paintball guns, centaurs with face paint, centaurs with full body paint. It was pure chaos.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, Chiron scooped up Grover and Annabeth, placing them on his back.

Another centaur trotted up to me. "Come on, girl. We gotta get moving."

I struggled to climb on his back, my injured arm hampering my movement. Another centaur helped me up.

"Yo, grab your friend."

I called Tyson over, who quickly jumped on the horse-man's back.

The centaur buckled a little, but stayed standing. "Dude. Lay off the carbs!"

Luke tried to rally his warriors to chase us, but an arrow with a boxing glove hit him square in the face, and he went down. Before any of his warriors could do anything, the centaurs started to run to the edge of the boat, and jumped.

I braced for impact with the ground, but barely felt anything.

We started running through the streets of Miami, the party ponies yelling taunts at the cruise ship as we ran away.

---

Before long, the buildings began to blur. The centaurs picked up speed. It felt like space was warping and compacting. Within seconds, we had left the city behind.

We ran through marshy fields. Finally, we reached, of all things, a trailer park. The trailers were all horse trailers, kitted out with TVs and mini-fridges and mosquito netting. This was a centaur camp.

I dismounted, my legs shaky.

"Dude!" One party pony said. "Did you see that bear guy? He was all 'whoa, I have an arrow in my mouth!'"

A centaur with googly-eye glasses laughed. "I know! It was awesome! Head slam!" The two centaurs smacked their heads together, stumbling away dazedly.

Chiron trotted up to me, Grover and Annabeth still on his back. "I really wish my cousins would not slam their heads together. They do not have any spare brain cells."

"Chiron!" I gasped, trying not to black out from the pain in my arm. "You saved us!"

Chiron bowed his head. "Well, I couldn't very well let you die after you so kindly cleared my name."

Grover and Annabeth dismounted.

Chiron then went on to explain how he found us. Apparently, everything strange washed up on Miami Beach. Or was washed up in Miami, it is Florida after all. After that, it was a simple matter of him getting Iris to alert him to any important messages in the area, then he would be able to come get us.

I looked over at the campfire to see some party ponies trying to teach Tyson to shoot a paintball gun.

"So what now, Chiron?" I asked. "We just let Luke sail away? He's got Kronos on that ship, or at least parts of him."

Chiron knelt next to me. He opened his medicine pouch and started to treat my arm wound. "I'm afraid, Percy - you still go by Percy, yes?"

I nodded. "Why wouldn't I?"

"Well, often when one decides to transition as you have, they tend to use a different name."

I frowned. "Transition."

Chiron nodded. "Mr. D could explain things better than I could. Well, it's to do with your transformation. Annabeth mentioned it to me. From what I understand about Hermes' multivitamins, any transformation they induce would be fully desired by the individual in question. Because of this, I am guessing that you are, in fact, a transgender girl."

"I'm not exactly sure what that means," I said.

"Transgender individuals are, to my understanding, and believe me, I imagine my understanding is better than most, countless students of mine have themselves been transgender. Transgender individuals are people who at birth, were believed to be one gender, when in reality they were another, be that the opposite gender or some other one that exists outside of this binary mortals insist on. Regardless, back to my original point. I'm afraid today was somewhat of a draw, Percy. We didn't have the strength in numbers to take that ship, and Luke's forces didn't have the organization to follow us. No one won."

"But we got the fleece," Annabeth said.

Chiron nodded. "You are all true heroes. As soon as we get Percy all fixed up, you must return to Camp. The party ponies will take you."

"You're coming too," I said.

"Of course, Percy. I will be relieved to be home. My brethren simply don't appreciate Dean Martin's music. And besides… I'm curious about the fleece…" he trailed off, looking thoughtful as he finished dressing my wound.

I wasn't sure what he meant, but I was reminded about what Luke had said, about letting us have the fleece. I wasn't sure if he was telling the truth.

Before I could think about it further, we heard some loud cheering. We turned to see Tyson shooting a paintball at a centaur, knocking him into the lake.

"Annabeth," Chiron said. "Perhaps it would be best if you and Grover made sure that my cousins and Tyson don't teach each other too many bad habits."

Annabeth nodded. "Sure, Chiron. Come on, Goat Boy."

Grover yelped. "But I don't like paintball!"

Annabeth grabbed his arm and started dragging him away. "Yes you do."

Chiron sighed. "Percy, Annabeth also told me something else. About the prophecy."

Oh, shit.

"It's not her fault," I said. "I made her tell me!"

He looked irritated, but that quickly faded to weariness. "I suppose I should not have expected to keep it secret forever."

"So, is the prophecy about me?"

Chiron finished putting away his medical supplies. "I wish I knew for sure, Percy. You're not yet sixteen. For now, we must train you as best we can. Leave the future to the fates."

"That's what that meant, then."

"I beg your pardon?"

I explained to Chiron about that time when the fates appeared to me, over a year ago now.

"The death they showed. It's to do with the prophecy. It will happen when I turn 16."

Chiron shifted nervously. "My girl, you can't know that for sure."

"But it fits," I said.

"We don't even know for sure that the prophecy would be about you, yet."

"But there are no other children of the big three!"

"None that we know of."

"And Kronos is rising now. He will try to destroy Olympus."

Chiron nodded. "He will, and western civilization with it. But we will fight to stop him. You will not be alone."

But I would be, in the end. It all came down to one choice. One singular decision. And, if I survived another 2 years and 2 months, to the exact day, in fact, it would be down to me.

"But what can I do, Chiron? I'm just a kid!" I sounded miserable. "What good is one lousy hero against a titan?"

Chiron smiled. "’What good is one lousy hero?’ If I had a penny for every time one of my students said that to me, I would be the richest man alive." He sighed. "Tell me, Percy. What would happen if I were to shoot any of my arrows, all tipped with celestial bronze, at a mortal?"

"Nothing, sir. It would pass right through them."

"Exactly. Humans don't exist on the same level as gods and monsters. They can't be hurt by our weapons. But you, Percy. You are a demigod. Part god, part human. You live in both worlds, and can affect both. That's what's so special about heroes. You take the hopes of humanity into the realm of the eternal. And beneath it all… monsters, continually reforming from the chaos underneath all civilization, the very thing giving Kronos strength. As a hero, it is your struggle to fight that, keep it at bay, to fight the battles that keep humanity human. Do you understand that?"

I shook my head. "I'm not sure, Chiron."

"You'll need to try. Because, even if you aren't the child the prophecy refers to, Kronos thinks you might be. And so you must be prepared. And after today, he will give up turning you to his side. As soon as he is sure you will never work for him, he will destroy you."

I swallowed. "You talk as if you know him."

Chiron nodded. "Better than most."

"Is that why they thought you would poison the tree? Come on, they can't seriously believe you would betray Camp for Kronos."

Chiron sighed. "Remember your training, Percy. What was my relationship to Kronos?"

I searched my brain, but was coming up blank. "Uh… you owe him? He spared your life or something similar?"

Chiron sighed. "Percy… Kronos is my father."