I'm not lying when I tell you I research every place I bring my heroes to (unless it's Attica, or Camp, which I reimagine on my own). I research how long it takes to get from Point A to Point B or as relatively close as I can, like when I took you to Missouri (I even factored in traffic). For this chapter I opened a dozen tabs on my computer, converted Nautical Miles to Miles and found how fast you had to travel on a boat to get to a place in a certain amount of time. Everything Diana spouts from her mind came from my learning. I included this map because you may really need it to visualize their journey, especially through the Mediterranean and Black Sea. Also this chapter was for some reason difficult to write and I have several drafts of it saved. It took me a while. :(

I don't know how I stayed asleep until nine thirty, but when I opened my eyes I was met with the view of a dark, cloudy night. I pulled myself up so I was sitting, and found Diana and Johnny asleep on the two other benches, our bags having been placed on the floor.

I cast my eyes out to the open water, just to check how fast we were going and to see if we were any closer to land. My heart leapt up. The boat was surrounded by land. I couldn't tell if we were as far as Italy, but we'd definitely passed Spain.

We'd be in Russia by tomorrow morning, Aegina had promised. I vaguely wondered how it would go down if we didn't get there. When Prometheus opened the Pithos, would it be instant or filled with suffering? I thought of the families in Vallencia Park. The kids with candies in Jefferson City, Missouri. Everyone at camp...

No, I told myself solemnly. We can do it. Every heroic novel ends with the hero completing the quest. If the world hadn't blown up by now from other inexperienced demigods on quests, it wouldn't happen with me. And we were in the Mediterranean, so close to the Black Sea and Russia.

Johnny was right. Everyone was right. Hope. I was lucky I had hope, even when no one else did. Hope was an asset. And the opposite of hope was defeat.

I didn't know how much sleep Johnny or Diana had gotten, but I woke them up anyway. Johnny was awake instantly, shouting "MONSTER?" before I assured him that we were very much safe from monsters.

"No, not monsters, land!"

It didn't take long for Diana to start ruining my moment of happiness with logistical sentences and facts.

"Oh, good! We're passing France and Algeria now! The Mediterranean Sea connects to the Black Sea first through the Bosporus Strait. And depending on how fast we're going, we can get there as early as eight!"

"How fast are we going?" I asked.

"Not fast enough." She paused, possibly doing a lot of math in her head (she looked very concentrated). "We need to go 1592.873 nautical miles to get to Sukhumi, which is where we can dock and get off. Elbrus is near Georgia, and we can go through Dombay to get there. Then there's--"

"Diana!" I cut her off. "I don't care where we have to go to get there until we're on land, okay? How fast do we need to go to get there at eight?"

"1592.873 nautical miles is 1833.045 regular miles. Going at the speed we're at, one-hundred-and-thirteen miles per hour, we'll get there by..." Her face fell slack. "Eleven thirty, half an hour before the deadline."

"And to get there at eight?" Johnny asked, chewing his lip.

"One-hundred-and-fifty miles per hour, to get there in ten and a half hours, at eight." Diana turned and dropped her head over the front of the boat, chatting with Aegina. The boat sped up almost instantly and I tried to be nonchalant about grabbing the side of the boat so hard my knuckles were turning white.

"Okay, we're going at Aegina's top speed. One-hundred-and-twenty miles per hour."

"When will that get us there?" I asked.

"Ten forty-six. Thirteen hours and sixteen minutes from now."

"Less than an hour and a half from the deadline?" I almost stood in my agitation, but remembered that the first time I did that, probably around noon, I fell straight into the water, and we were going much slower then. "Diana, we won't have enough time to get to the mountain and defeat Prometheus."

Diana swallowed the lump in her throat. "We have to."

~

We decided that then was as good a time as any to have the dinner we never ended up eating. Using a lot of the provisions we'd gotten from the castle, we made ourselves sandwiches and ate fruit and vegetables on the lonesome, drinking from water bottles that Agra had later told us were from the other, less fortunate demigods who had arrived on Attica.

Looking at Diana, my worry calmed down. With her, we didn't need a Poseidon kid to get the layout of sea and land. She already had our route planned for days - land wise, of course, we couldn't have predicted the need for this boat. I knew she didn't share before because there was never a good time. If she already had a route, that meant we knew where we were going, so we wouldn't waste extra time being lost.

After putting our provisions away, I decided I needed to keep us all from thinking about how badly this could go. Like Chiron had done with the lava wall, distraction was key in making sure people didn't over guess themselves. I remembered Johnny saying how Diana sometimes let her mind run until she got stuck in a thought and would stop at nothing to complete it. If she overthought here, it could lead to the downfall of the quest. It could lead to her death.

"Diana, we've known each other for a week, now. You know so much about me, my claustrophobia, my daddy issues -" (Johnny had showed her the scar after dinner) "- the warrant out for my arrest. But I hardly know you."

"I have your back, Y/N," she said dismissively.

"You gave up your medallion for me," I told her, looking on where I'd gotten used to seeing it around her neck. "I could tell that was something very important to you. I know you have my back. But I still don't know you."

Diana looked at Johnny, who shrugged. Man, I hated when they had conversations with their eyes. I hated that they were close enough to do that.

"I don't like telling people about my past. Johnny knows it better than anyone else. I let my head get the best of me, and it got a kid killed." She paused, not meeting my eyes. "It won't happen again. I won't lose you two, I promise. That's why I used my medallion. I can't be responsible for failing again."

With a start, I realized that everyone had something banking on this quest besides saving the world. I needed to win my father's approval to be claimed by him, for him to officially say I'm his. Johnny had to prove that he could protect us even with his on/off nose. Diana wanted to prove that she wouldn't get stuck in one mindset and ruin everything.

I remembered how near the beginning of the quest Diana took control, a natural leader who'd been on a quest before. I remembered how she'd regard me after ever decision I made, saying how maybe she should come up with the plan. But now she let me choose, and for the most part she kept her mouth shut and trusted me. She was trying to let someone else make the choices and show her a different way. She was trying to be more accepting of other thoughts and not let just one cloud her judgement over everything. She was trying to keep her friends alive.

"Never mind," I said, after a while.

Diana furrowed her brows, steely grey eyes regarding me curiously. "Never mind what?"

"I do know you, Diana. Almost as much as I know Johnny. You've got my back, I've got yours."

She gave a small smile, then turned her sights back towards the front.

"So...what are we gonna do until we get there?" Johnny asked. "We've already all slept for an entire day, we're well fed, and we've still got a couple of hours until we get to Sock-humus,"

"Sokhumi," Diana corrected.

"Right, Sock-human," Johnny butchered it again. He had a point, my trying to distract everyone involved me making Diana uncomfortable and then ending the conversation with resolution. My plan didn't cover what came next to alleviate the boredom and keep everyone's minds off things.

"Perhaps," Diana suggested, "we should talk battle strategy? It would help if I told you all where we were going before we got there. Then I'm sure Y/N and I - don't look so sad, Johnny, it's simply because we're trained in combat and you're trained in reed pipes - can come up with a few plans to getting Prometheus in a compromising position so we can use the chain," she motioned at the golden iron she was using as a belt, "and bind him for good."

"I don't even have my reed pipes anymore." Johnny sulked. "They plunged into the ocean."

Diana frowned at him. "We'll also figure out what Johnny can do. I mean, you don't have a weapon,"

"Cool. You think I'm good at making plans." I muttered.

"I think you're good at keeping cool in battle, even when it scares you. Take the burning train as an example. I think you're good at improvising, definitely good at making up plans in the middle of combat."

"Yeah," I agreed. "In the middle of combat. I'm not good with directions ahead of time."

"Then I won't give you directions. I'll give you a guide. Anyway," Diana easily brushed past the topic before I could protest more. "We dock in Sukhumi, then we start heading towards Dombay. We can't take the mapped travelling route because that'll take eleven hours and stretches around the mountains we need to be going over to get to Dombay quicker. From there, we need to go through..."

~

Like I'd said, Diana had it all prearranged.

I'd nearly thrown myself at the ground once we got out of the boat and onto land. Diana and Johnny thanked Aegina and apologized for me as I jumped on solid, stiff dirt, happy to be out of the ocean.

My celebration was short lived, of course, because as soon as Aegina clacked something and evaporated the boat, I was reminded that the world would be ending in roughly an hour and a half, granted that I couldn't get to Elbrus to stop Prometheus first.

I'm not going to bore you with all the details. The trek over endless mountains between Sukhumi and Dombay made the balls of my feet throb, Johnny being the only one handling the climbing and descending like a champ. At all times I found my hand on the hilt of my dagger, even as we passed the stray mountain climber. I noticed Diana was doing the same with her new sword. She'd told me repeatedly it was a little too weighted at one end, and she wasn't sure if that would do her much good. Because of that, I came up with the excellent idea that when we reached Elbrus, Johnny got the sword. At first, she didn't like the idea. But the more I unfolded about what she'd be doing instead, the more she agreed to my terms. I'd given in to the whole 'plan ahead' thing. Although I couldn't promise I'd follow the directions, knowing who would be where helped ease my mind.

In my head, our journey on foot was about as eventful as a day in math class. Meaning it was a hell of a lot longer to me than it was in real life, which was good because I didn't want the end of the world to happen while we were climbing to the top of a mountain so close to the one Prometheus was on. Of course, math class didn't have the impending doom of a Titan unleashing evil spirits to kill everyone on earth...

Diana's small encouragements of "We're making good time," and "This is faster than I thought we'd be going, and closer than I thought it was. We'll be there in no time." definately helped boost my morale as we tracked our way through small forests as we passed Dombay.

Of course, all I allowed myself to hear was her appraisal. I didn't want, need, or ask to know how much time we had left. Being happily and hopefully oblivious worked for me. It certainly wasn't long until Diana paused, pointing out the shadow of our destination not far in the distance.

"We're almost there," I breathed.

"There's something here," Johnny sniffed.

We all stopped, dead cold. Of course, as soon as the best bit of good news hit, something bad had to come in and crash it.

"Monster?" Diana asked, and I used my ready hand to pull the dagger from its holster around my waist.

"Yeah, I think so." Johnny agreed, tapping his nose again. We'd been out of the forest for a while now, and as I spun on my heel I noted no hiding place in which a monster could hide.

"Johnny, are you sure your nose is--"

"Nevermind." Johnny said, rather hurt by my attempted accusation. "Maybe my nose is acting up. Let's just keep going."

"Hey, Johnny, it's just that...I don't see anything."

Johnny shook his head. "That's not why I said nevermind." He started walking again, cloven hooves steadily hitting the rock at our feet as we decended down a ridge - after which we'd be at the foot of our destination. "That smell, that monster smell..."

"What?" Diana asked impatiently as she and I struggled to keep up with the nimble satyr.

"It's coming from Y/N, okay? I'm probably just mixing up scents now, demigod, monster..." He shook his head. I saw why he was walking so fast to get away from me. But this had never been a problem before...

Either way, this would have to wait. We were so close to Elbrus, so close to Prometheus, so close to our deadline. Any distractions had to be pushed from our minds in fear of it messing us up in combat. Any issues would have to be dealt with when the world was safe from evil spirits and a Titan who was once kind to humanity.

Then, we were at the base of Elbrus, staring at a sign. The top was in Russian, then the bottom divided between several other languages, including english.

Elbrus Mountain, home of the world's nastiest outhouse. Cable Cars to the top run from 9am-3pm, taking 6 to 9 hours, without delay.

"Well, we aren't taking the Cable Car." Johnny said meekly, and we looked up at the mountain.

"If that thing goes to the top," I said, glancing at the tourist in line for the ride to my right. "Doesn't that mean all these people have been and are now going to where Prometheus is? Where the fight will be?" I felt sick to my stomach.

"Y/N," Diana spoke, "Elbrus is a dormant volcano. By 'the top', they don't really mean the top. Still, these people might be in danger, you're right. We need to stop them from going up. Moreover, we need to figure out how to make the ones up there come down..."

Her reply hadn't helped my nausea. In fact, it now forced me to ask a question I'd been avoiding for as long as I could.

"Do we have enough time?"

She glanced up at the sky as if checking the position of the sun. "Like I said before, we made excellent time - better than I ever could have hoped. Unfortunately, we didn't have a lot of time in the first place." She turned back to Johnny and I, face mildly grim. "We have half an hour."

Johnny bleated, much to the curiosity of an eleven year old in line for the Cable Car nearby.

"Fastest climb time is two hours, and even though we aren't climbing..." Diana trailed off.

"No way we can get these people to safety." Johnny added on.

Our prayers were answered, but almost completely misinterpreted as seen when the tourists errupted in a fit of screaming and flailing.

A red Cable Car as big as a schoolbus, hopefully empty on its way down, rolled fender over bumper like a lethal boomerang right for us.