"You are not shadow traveling."

The son of Hades crossed his arms. "That's rude."

"What's rude is you passing out nearly every time you shadow travel," Will countered. "You're still on suspension. No shadow traveling. Doctor's orders."

"Fine," Nico grumbled, knowing it was the end of the conversation.

Will's eyes softened, "But do be safe, will you."

"Always am."

"That's a lie," Will chuckled. Then, seemingly remembering I was still in the room, he turned to me. "You be careful too."

I smiled extra sweetly, "Always am."

"You both are so annoying," he said.

"You're not annoying enough," I said.

Will rolled his eyes and dropped a bag into my hands. "This should be more than enough ambrosia for ten demigods for three weeks if you're all dying... but you better not be, so I expect leftovers when you come back."

"Thanks."

"I added a few canteens of nectar," he continued. "But that's not going to last very long because I can't just give you gallons."

I smiled softly. "Will, we're going to be fine. We're demigods. This is basically everyday life."

"I know, but this is different. You guys will practically be isolated, because all communications have to be shut off."

Two will be lost without a trace.

My voice unwavering without any hint of doubt, I lied, "Don't worry. We're all going to be okay."

He didn't look completely convinced, but not knowing the prophecy and reading the certainty in my voice, he didn't know what else to think.

I gave him one last side hug, "I've got to finish packing. I'll see you... when I see you."

___

We divided the first aid supplies, ambrosia, nectar, drachmas, and USD between all of us incase of the event that we would be split up and potentially hurt.

Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst.

"Chiron has us all on the next flight to the LAX airport. There's no reason for Zeus to spite us out of the sky, right?" Annabeth asked, kind of joking. "We have a son of Zeus— or Jupiter I mean— so we should be sort of safe."

"And my mom is driving us to the airport," Percy said.

Jason laughed, "I hope your mom knows she's an absolute saint for being the honorary mom of everyone."

Percy's ears reddened as he smiled bashfully.

Leo looked at his watch. "Our flight leaves in a few hours, but we still have to get through security and find our gate."

"Yeah, let's go," Hazel said.

We each had our own backpacks, not wanting to take anything to excessive into the Underworld, but also needing a change of clothes and such. Our weapons, wether visually obvious or not, were at the ready.

Together, we looked like a group of murderous backpackers.

We all piled into Mrs. Jackson's minivan. There wasn't enough seats, but we had all done more dangerous things than sitting in a car without a seatbelt nor in a seat, so it didn't really matter.

___

With a bit of Mist, we'd gotten our compilation of various weapons through security. We found our gate relatively easily, not before stopping at Auntie Ann's for pretzels.

We sat in the airplane, waiting for it to take off. Unfortunately, all of us were pretty spread out across the plane. None of us were sitting alone, but there weren't enough open seats all in one space.

I popped a cinnamon-sugar pretzel bite into my mouth.

"You're hogging them," Percy complained.

"What are you going to do about it?" I asked, shoving another one in my mouth before even finishing the last one I was eating.

He rolled his eyes, "Rude."

He leaned over the arm rest and reached for the cup that was attempting to keep away from him. His elbow jabbed into my side as he climbed over me.

I squeaked loudly, stifling a laugh, "Stop! You're going to make me spill all of them!"

I hovered the cup of bite sized pretzels in front of him in an attempt to annoy him, but he easily regained possession of the pretzels.

"Rude."

He just laughed.

___

I tried to get comfortable in my seat, but the seatbelt was bothering me and the seat felt much too small. Though Percy was fast asleep on my shoulder, I was having trouble sleeping.

Trying with minimal movement to not disturb Percy, I leaned over to grab my bag from under the seat in front of me. Deciding I wouldn't be getting much sleep after all, I looked for my book, which conveniently happened to be at the bottom of the bag.

A toddler who was tugging on his mother's sleeve across the aisle caught my attention. His curly toffee hair flopping wildly in front of his eyes.

"Momma, momma, momma!" The little boy's eyes catching a twinkle of excitement and wonder. He pointed straight at me, breathless with excitement. "That girl has a dagger!"

His mother whirled around with panic before almost instantly resolving, not seeing anything out of the ordinary. "Course she does, baby," she cooed, playing along. "Now sit in your seat, I gotta put your seatbelt on."

The toddler, not buying his mother's genuineness, whined. "But momma, she does!"

I smiled softly as if sharing a secret with the little boy before twisting the sun symbol on the hilt of the weapon. In a blink of an eye, the metal melted and contracted into a golden band.

The boy's eyes widened with shock at what he'd just witnessed, the golden ring glimmering in the sunlight peeking through the airplane window. "Momma!"

"Ben, sit down," his mother repeated, prying the boy's hands off her arm. "Look, baby, the pilot is about to start talking."

He glanced back at me one last time and I winked. The little toddler giggled and blushed before turning back around.

"Good afternoon, everyone. This is your pilot speaking..."
___

i'm tired lol my phone is telling me that i've been on tiktok for over 14 hours this week and tumblr for over 10 hours oops

also happy holidays !

982 | unedited