In the morning I woke sure of my decision.

To pack, we each got a back-pack from the camp store, along with both regular money and drachmas (weird name, but they were round coins that we could use with Greek beings), extra clothes, toiletries (toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant...), nectar and ambrosia, rations (granola and fibre bars, crackers and spreads), flashlights and batteries, blankets and bed rolls, a water bottle, and whichever personal item we so chose. I packed in my pillow pet.

To suit up, Diana and I wore normal clothes (mine had been shredded, so I got a blue 'GREEKS RULE' shirt from the camp store), Johnny wore pants and fake feet to cover his sheepy-ness, looking just like he had when I first met him; human.

Diana, seemingly gifted with the talent of multi-weapon use, had a sword in her bag and a ring on her right hand that turned into a bow, with a quiver stocked with arrows magically appearing on her back when activated.

"You don't need to be the daughter of the archery god to be able to use a bow, but I do prefer the sword and wits above it." She had told me.

I strapped my own, non-transforming dagger around my waist and prayed that people thought it was just a cool, non-threatening belt. Eleo stopped by my table and handed me the collapsible shield she had promised me, wished me luck, and went back to her own table for breakfast. I fastened it as a bracelet around my wrist. Cool.

"What if they see the dagger?" I asked Johnny. Freddy and Thomas were ogling me, like it was so cool that I was going on a quest. I hadn't paid them any heed, I wanted to focus completely on doing this right and not killing everyone.

"Did I not explain mist to you?" Johnny asked nervously. "It's like a shield to mortal eyes. That's why the kids couldn't see the Panthers and blamed us; all they knew at the time was that there was danger."

"Why are you scared again?" I dropped my voice so the two Hermes kids couldn't hear. "This quest isn't going to fail like your last one. I'm leading it, aren't I? We're going to prevail."

"I'm not nervous about that." Johnny said.

"Then what?"

"Exactly what I just said. I got the paper from yesterday, you know, to chew and stuff as a small snack. Then I noticed the front cover. We need to keep our heads low during this quest; we're wanted for murder in the first degree, and attempted murder. There's a man hunt on us now, way worse than that news report before..."

My face fell slack. "Because why wouldn't this happen to us?"

~

Argus looked very similar to my best-satyr-friend.

They shared the same blond hair, the same light soft skin, even the same baby-blue eyes. Only, where Johnny had two, Argus had hundreds, and they blinked up at me from every inch of skin he had showing. He smiled with tight lips, lifted the brown hat off his head in salute, then pulled our packed bags into the back of the white 'Delphi Strawberry Co.' van.

Chiron and Rachel stood beside the van. Eleo, Freddy, Thomas, Jordan, and Mike stood at the front of the campers who'd all followed us down the hill to wish us luck on the quest. Ryder and Lee weren't part of the crowd.

Diana pulled me aside.

"Well, where are we going?" She asked.

"Exactly where I pointed on the map last night. We're going to Jefferson City, Missouri, to see Epimetheus. Don't take this the wrong way; I just think Chiron is wiser."

She shrugged, but I could see it mattered to her. "It's your quest. Now let's say bye to your adoring fans and be off."

So we did. Hugs for everyone in the front row, waves for everyone I wasn't quite friends with, and a shake of the hand to Rachel and Chiron, who both wished me luck and told me I'd probably do great.

Then, the three of us got into the back of the van, told Argus where to take us, and took a last, long look at camp.

~

The usual time it takes to get from New York to Missouri is sixteen hours, but Argus managed to get us there in only six. How he did that was beyond me, but my sore bum wasn't complaining.

Argus dropped us in front of a small motel, something casual we could afford. After pulling our bags out of the van and wishing us a silent good-luck (I'd come to the conclusion that he wasn't speaking because he had an eye in his mouth), he got back into the van and drove away, headed back home.

Only then did I get a glimpse of how unnaturally fast he was travelling.

I rolled my bag onto my shoulders, and started heading for the doors.

"Wait," Johnny grabbed my arm. "What are we doing?"

"Checking in," I said, stating the obvious.

"Shouldn't we talk to Epimetheus first, then get the motel room later?"

It was midday now, and the scorching sun prickled against my skin, waiting to burn me.

"I don't know about you, but I'm getting out of this heat," I said, well aware that I'd only just stepped into it and would have to venture through it again in roughly fifteen minutes.

Diana shrugged. "Come on, Jonathan. There's no harm in setting up a room. Think of the benefits, we won't have to lug around our heavy bags, and we can go straight to sleep after the no doubt exhausting talk with the Titan of Stupidity."

Johnny looked at his scrawny arms then down at the heavy bag he hadn't lifted onto his shoulders yet. "Yeah, okay."

Diana handled getting the room, saying that our parents would be by in the morning to join us but were currently doing business and sent us ahead. The man behind the desk looked at us each in turn then raised an eyebrow.

"They're adopted." Diana said quickly and shepherded us away.

Unfortunately, with the money we had we could only afford one room if we wanted to have enough to get through these seven days (hopefully less, perhaps we could finish early, if Epimetheus didn't take long to find).

"I'll take the floor," Johnny offered, because there were only two beds, a bathroom, and a TV in the small, cramped room. The only thing keeping me from panicking was the fact that Johnny was here with me.

Usually, I was okay when it came to normal rooms like these. My bedroom was smaller, and it was fine, but only when the door was open. The same with classrooms, being about the same size as the motel room. But when the teacher closed the door I suddenly felt trapped, like there was no escaping, like the walls and other students were tumbling in around me. Johnny talked me out of that feeling on multiple occasions, sometimes earning detention for being distracting during class. He was better than the kids at my last school, who laughed when I had a breakdown.

"Y/N," Johnny was standing in front of me suddenly. I wondered how long I'd been staring into space. ADHD working up again. "You okay with that?"

"Hmm?" I asked.

"Me and you in one bed, Johnny in another?" Diana asked. "If not, I can take the floor, I just don't want Johnny to - I'd rather it be me than anyone else."

"No, yeah. That's okay. Me an' you." I agreed.

We emptied our bags, and packed only the bare necessities into Diana's, bringing only one bag that was lighter than the previously fully-packed ones.

It held nectar and ambrosia, Diana's sword, Johnny's reed pipes (wasn't sure why, maybe Epimetheus had a thing for music? Maybe Johnny could bash it over his head?), a map, and the different currencies of money we had. I made sure my dagger was secure around my waist, and Johnny pulled his feet on tighter to his cloven shoes.

Where Diana and I traded our long pants for shorts, poor Johnny had to deal with the heat from both his fur and the pants on top of it. I felt bad for him. Then I felt worse when I found out none of us had packed sunscreen.

"We can get hats in a shop after the meeting with Epimetheus." Diana rolled her eyes at Johnny and my insufferable whining. "Now, where are we going?"

I realized with a jolt like electricity that she was looking at me.

"What?" I cocked an eyebrow. "How am I supposed to know?"

"You said he was here." Johnny chimed. "If that gut feeling was right then maybe your gut can give us a building?"

"How did you think this was going to work?" Diana scowled, the niceness of her offering Johnny a bed even if it meant her sleeping on the floor gone. "We wonder around blindly until we find him?"

"Well, yes." I agreed sheepishly. "I don't know where he is."

"Diana, maybe you should use your--"

"No." I never got to hear the end of Johnny's sentence.

"Okay. Wandering around blindly until we find Epimetheus it is, then." I muttered, turning towards the door. "Let's go."

~

I tried to make conversation as we aimlessly strolled up Jefferson Street, the street our motel was on.

It was a quaint town, with topiaries in front of houses, flower centre pieces in the middle of the road giving it that little touch. The further down we got, we noticed construction sites on the side of the road. Men in hard hats paid us as little attention as the other people walking around, everyone going about their daily lives, not at all aware of the fate that could fall upon them.

"Why did Hestia have the Pithos?"

"Hmm?" Johnny asked as we turned left onto W High Street, where little shops with awnings hanging over the doors guarded the sides of the roads. Children dragged their parents into chocolate or ice cream shops, parents and teenagers walked into book stores. I couldn't get that feeling out of my stomach. I wanted to tell them to cherish this time they spent together, because maybe we'd fail, and they would all die.

"When we were talking about the Pithos being stolen, Rachel said that Zeus took it from Hestia and put it under his immediate care. Why was it with Hestia and not Zeus in the first place? I mean, Zeus is all mighty, and Hestia...she's just the goddess of the hearth."

"Mmm." Diana shook her head. "Mmm, mmm. Don't say that. Don't say it so condescendingly. They don't like when you talk bad about them. When it comes to why Hestia had it...Percy Jackson, a hero before our time, gave it to her after the Titan War."

"Okay." I said, like it made sense.

"I hate this," Johnny muttered. "Wandering around. If I could smell him, that would be different..."

"Smell him?" I gawked. "Like how you said you could smell the monsters, and me? I didn't know that applied to Titans, too."

"It applies to everything that isn't human, Y/N." Diana said, and we hung a right onto W Capitol Avenue.

"Wait," I stopped, furrowing my brows. "If you could smell him?...Why can't you? We know he's here, shouldn't you be getting a scent?"

Johnny flushed bright red, embarrassed. Diana looked at him with a sympathetic grin. Gods, I hated how she knew more than me but it was even worse when she knew more about my best friend.

"What?" I asked, trying to hide my frustration.

"Well, uh, I have a sort of nose problem. It doesn't always...work. A monster could be ten feet from us, and I wouldn't have a clue right now..."

An uneasy feeling settled in my stomach. "And you didn't tell me this until now?"

"I'm sorry," he averted his eyes. "It's just...I thought that, if you knew, you wouldn't want me on your quest because you'd think I couldn't protect you."

"Johnny! Why in Zeus's name would you ever think that? You were my first choice, without a doubt - even if you can't smell monsters! You could when we were having the annual volleyball game at school, and you save my life. I have confidence that when you need that nose of yours, it'll work. And I mean for a monster. We can manage finding Epimetheus on our own."

"Can we?" Diana asked, ruining a perfectly good moment in that Johnny and I were about to hug. "Can we really? Because we don't know where we're going."

~

She wasn't wrong. I pointed at all the buildings I though were old and suggested we check those, to which Diana pointed out that just because a building was old didn't mean Epimetheus was hiding in it. I felt like she was babying me, but this was my quest so I made her eat her words and purposefully steered us through the door of every old building if only to spite her.

It was getting late now. We'd passed a railway and found out we almost left Jefferson City, went back a different way and got lost, until finally, at five o'clock in the afternoon we decided to stop at a Chipotle place for dinner, and then head back to the motel.

The Chipotle place was small, but clean, and the prices were cheap so none of us were complaining. We got our food and sat in a red-chaired booth. I had only just lifted my glass of iced tea to my lips when Johnny dropped the plastic fork he was about to secretly devour.

"What?" Diana and I asked in unison.

"My nose...I smell something. Something that's here."

"I thought--"

"I guess it's working now," Johnny shrugged.

"Monster, demigod, or Epimetheus?" I asked hopefully.

"Don't be silly, why would the Titan be here, at a Chipo--"

"I think it's him," Johnny's eyes were wide as he looked around the small restaurant. Diana shot daggers into our table with her eyes and I suppressed laughing at her. Despite what you may think, her and I got along in our own special way.

There were only two other occupied tables, one with a family, and a lone man. Well, this was easier than I thought. Chipotle! Who knew!

"Come on, I think it's that guy." I told them, standing.

"Who would have guessed," Diana mocked, albeit playfully, and with bag on her shoulders we sat in front of the lone guy.

He looked about forty, with a balding head of salt-and-pepper hair, and a full beard that hung off his chin. His eyes were a musty golden colour, hidden by sunglasses that fell to his hooked nose the moment we sat down. He was in a ratty business suit, and his eyes shifted wildly between the three of us like he'd just pitched an idea in front of the whole company and was waiting for a response.

He was nervous.

"Look--I didn't mean to!" He said quickly, hands up, voice quiet and shaky. Yeah, this was easy.

It was kind of disappointing, in all honesty; weren't quests supposed to be this epic thing that ended seconds before the deadline, where everything goes wrong before it goes right?

"We know," Diana said. "You're stupid enough that we believe that. Now how about you give us that Pithos?"

"What? I can't!" Epimetheus glowered.

"Why not?" Johnny asked.

"Because I don't have it! I only stole it, because he told me to -- I didn't think about it until after, so I came here to hide! Zeus doesn't like Missouri, so I thought I'd be safe!"

I had a lot if questions bubbling around in my mind, but I thought asking why Zeus hated Missouri, although intriguing, wasn't important enough to be the first question I asked.

"Who told you t--"

"How'd you get onto Olympus?" Diana cut me off. I glanced at Johnny, who shrugged apologetically. "Gods can, but they couldn't have stolen it, why would they? Titans, as far as I'm concerned, you guys aren't allowed up there. So how could you possibly have gotten the Pithos?"

Epimetheus flushed. Evidently, he was not a big fan of Diana. I wasn't sure I blamed him for that. She was taking control of this quest, my quest. We'd have words later.

"The Pithos was given to my wife, Pandora," he said, looking at me like I would help him answer these questions. "I can summon it from anywhere."

"Good. Summon it here." Diana said flatly.

"No way! I never wanted to see it again, it brings back too many bad memories! I only got if for my brother as payback for warning me about Pandora in the first place!"

"Your brother," I said, suddenly smiling. "So your brother has it. Prometheus. Diana," I swallowed my pride, "you were right all along. Now we need to find him."

I was happy when Diana didn't rub it in my face that mine, Johnny's, and Chiron's suspicions were all wrong.

Epimetheus slapped his hand over his mouth.

"Where is he?" Johnny prodded. "Where's your brother now?"

"I don't want to tell you..." Epimetheus said in a small voice. I heard Diana's bag unzip, and a second later her sword was under the Titan's throat.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" I whispered as loud as I could, as not to draw more attention to us. "He's not doing anything wrong!"

"Shush." Diana warned me. "Where is he?"

"In the Caucasus mountain, where Zeus punished him, because why would Zeus think he was hiding there?" Epimethesu replied.

I pushed her blade away with my hand, she didn't force it back upon him. Epimetheus smiled in thanks.

"Good, we have a location, let's go." Johnny said.

"No," Diana stopped him. "There are twenty-eight mountains in the Caucasus mountain system in Russia, none of which are simply called Caucasus. Which mountain, specifically, was your brother chained to?"

Epimetheus swallowed, looking again to me for assistance.

"How about this?" I said softly. "You tell us which mountain, and I'll talk to Zeus personally to get you out of trouble, okay?"

"Swear it." Epimetheus said quickly.

"I swear it."

"On the river Styx."

"Okay, uh, I swear it on the river Styx." I said the same moment Johnny said 'no!'

"What?" I asked him.

"Swearing on the river Styx is a serious promise, if you don't follow through with it you'll be punished!" Johnny had paled. "You shouldn't have said that!"

"I was going to follow through with that anyway." I muttered, turning back to Epimetheus. "Which mountain?"

"Thank you, Pa--demigod. I shall bless you with all the animals you wish in return. The mountain he was punished on was Elbrus."

He smiled at me, and snapped his fingers. I blinked, and when I opened my eyes again we were back in the motel, still hungry, but now rested and looking at the clock on my bedside table I could see that it was seven o'clock in the morning.

_________
Questions: