Percy's POV

I pulled out Riptide, silently praying to the gods to make sure it worked on giant talking rats. But of course, the rats did exactly what Ripred did when he saw it: they shrank away from the metal.

"You!" The leader rat dude hissed. "You're one of them!"

"Yeah, and you kinda just threatened our lives, so..." Thalia trailed off. She then fired a lightning quick shot at the rat in the back. It hit him between the eyes, causing him to erupt into golden flakes.

"I thought it was supposed to be dust?" I heard Hazel mutter to Nico in Latin. She never got the hang of Greek.

"It's not a Greek monster. The godly metal must affect them differently," Nico replied.

Gregor pulled out his sword. He and Luxa started fighting the other rat, while the demigods were fighting the leader rat. Ripred was just chewing a rock off to the side.

"You know, if I didn't know better, I could have sworn that Gregor was a demigod," I yelled in Greek over the crashing or claws, teeth, and metal. Annabeth nodded.

A few seconds later the fight was over. We picked up the things that had dropped, spilled, or otherwise floated out of reach during the fight. Luxa was going around healing injuries. There wasn't anything too serious. The bats plus Blackjack were off getting food. Luxa told me the bats were fishing. I just told Blackjack to get food from our world. He nodded with an "of course boss!" And flew off.

"Hey Gregor," I called. He turned and walked over to me. "You have both your parents, right?"

" Yeah. My dad was kidnapped by these rats for years, and my mom got a disease from here, but I know both of them and they're safe now. Why?" He seemed to be studying me for a reaction. He wouldn't get one.

"No reason. You just don't talk about them much," I shrugged.

"Uh huh. You seemed anxious to know something and now you seem bummed. What were you thinking?" He asked, turning to me from where he was picking up some supplies that had fallen out of his backpack.

"Well, all of us, and by that I mean Thalia, Nico, Hazel, Annabeth and I, don't have both of our birth parents. I mean, Annabeth and I have one parent and a step parent, but Nico and Hazel don't have either, and my mom practically took them in. Plus Nico lost his other sister. Thalia lost her brother and then found him. He stays with his girlfriend's family, and Thalia was adopted by a women who hates boys. I had an abusive stepfather before he disappeared and my mom married Paul, and he's a great guy. Annabeth has two stepbrothers plus a stepmother who hate her, but they're growing on each other. So I was hoping for more people to relate with, I guess," I carefully covered anything that could give us away, but knowing me, there's probably a hole somewhere. He looked surprised.

"Luxa lost both her parents to rats," Gregor whispered. I nodded.

"At least you have each other," Annabeth said as she walked over to us, "We're lucky to have such a close-knit group of friends."

I let myself smile as I remember all the good memories with Annabeth, The Seven, Thalia, and Nico.

Luxa walked over to us with some cooked fish. I shook my head and just kept helping Gregor with his supplies. Annabeth nodded in thanks and Gregor took it greedily. The demigods were by the fire sacrificing quietly to the gods. Blackjack came back soon enough with a bag containing a cheeseburger in his mouth. No, he didn't get the cheeseburger dirty, that would be disgusting.

I cut off a portion for Poseidon and started eating.

"So... Where in the Deadlands are we going, exactly?"