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Stella had mostly just wanted the cyclops kid to stop petting the puppy so hard, as well as try to keep up the illusion that her new puppy was a guard puppy. However, it seemed that everything was falling apart quickly, due to the fact that the child had screamed for his mother, and his mother... wanted to eat them. Great. She had been warned that monsters would always be able to smell out demi-gods and always attack them when they were found out. It seemed it was true as the mother cyclops stormed over and grabbed Jason and tossed him into a wall. Stella let out a cry as she saw him slam into the wall, and she went to pull out her knife.

"Hey puppy, it's gonna be okay, it's gonna be okay. I'm here, and you can come to me, I'll protect you..." First things first, she needed her little puppy to be okay, and to come back to her. It seemed that the talking and tone of her voice did the trick, as her puppy ran back up to her and nuzzled in close. Second thing was the threat in front of them. Stella didn't have much in the way of training, but she knew that you put the pointy end of the knife into the monster. So she dashed forward with the knife and went to attack the mother. Luckily it seemed that she was too distracted, as Stella managed to get a good hit in on her, wounding her across her belly pretty badly.

---

---

With the gate locked, there was nowhere to go. And, of course, the Sphynx tried to attack her. But Mads protected her. She nodded, then pulled at the electricity around them. She threw a bolt at the Sphynx. She hit it, but it didn't do much damage. Andy sighed. Frustrated. It was irritating when she hit but didn't do any damage.

She pulled at the electricity again. This time she hit it again. And the Sphynx seemed to be stunned. Her sigh, this time, was more relieved. "I think it is stunned, stab it." Andy said. Hoping Mary or Mads would be able to take out the Sphynx before it got its senses back.




"You're really his mom?" She had not expected that. Niah was a little stunned and, because of that, a little slow to react. Jason was tossed into the wall. Niah blinked, but it was a good thing Stella was on her toes though. She got a good hit on the Cyclops woman.

Niah reached over and drew her sword, she swung at the cyclops woman, but the woman used her purse to block her attack. Niah swung again, on the backswing, and cut off her arm. So the cyclops now had a gut slash and an arm missing.

"We'd make terrible stew." Niah shook her head.

---

---

Zeke laughed at Nancy’s statement of him being the only Greek she tolerated. She used colourful words though that brought a grin to Zeke’s face. ”I take that as a compliment. There aren’t many here I am overly fond of,” he confided to her.
Since the rows only sat two to a row, Ezekiel sat in the row in front of Demetri, leaving the empty seat beside him for Nancy. He had a feeling Demi had been hoping they could sit together but it didn’t work out that way. Once the van started moving, Ezekiel settled into his seat. He pulled out one of his notebooks and a pen before he glanced sideways at Nancy and her sleeping dragon.
”Do you draw, Nanc?” Zeke wasn’t a great artist but he could get by. His skill had improved in the area of drawing plants and things and he could stumble through other things like buildings.

---

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Everyone began to file in one at a time. Janelle and Kristin took the back seat while Demetri took the middle left seat hoping Zeke would take the one to his right. He instead filed into the one in front of him, allowing Nancy to sit to his right. It wasn't ideal, but at least they were close together he thought to himself. But it seemed as though Zeke was more interested in his sister than he was his boyfriend at the time. Hardly saying a word to him as he continued to speak to Nancy. He knew it wasn't right, but a bout of jealousy began to boil inside of him at the attention he was giving her.

He wringed the beanie Zeke had given him in his hands before pulling it on over his head and down past his ears. It would have to fill in for the position of over the ear headphones for now. Demi slid the picture he'd taken out now that everyone was settled and the van was on the way, looking at it to not only see how it turned out, but to have some way of connecting himself to the scene. It appeared everyone else was content with leaving him out, though it's not as though he was used to it by now. Demi slouched into his chair, sliding down so that he could rest the soles of his shoes against the back of Zeke's chair, sitting in an almost fetal position as he closed his eyes and just ran music through his mind.

---

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Cassian took the only available seat left to him, well besides the back row with Janelle and Kristin. It wasn't that he didn't want to sit with them, more so there was no reason to cramp up the back seat when an available one was found elsewhere inside the car. He set his supplies down underneath the chair, securing the strap of his bag around his ankle. He leaned over and pulled out a small brown book that was bound closed by an elastic band. He opened it up, flipping through several pages of various sketches and watercolors that he had done over his time at Camp Half-Blood.

Back home he'd filled out several larger books full of designs and paintings of nature, his environment, and the people around him. He spent a lot of alone time, people watching, learning to read them, their emotions, inventing stories about their lives based on what he could see. But here, in this moment, was a child of the Big Three, curled up in a fetal position in a van with his eyes closed. Cassian began sketching him out, starting with a basic outline in pencil, to try and get a general feel for the emotion he seemed to be conveying at the time. If there was time for it later, he'd like to add watercolors to it to fully help shape the dynamic of the image. But for now he sat, his ankle resting on his knee as he sketched into his travel book with his tongue barely poking out in focus.

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Nancy was a little bit surprised when Zeke asked her if she could draw. Had anyone else asked, she might've chewed them out about that being a tired old cliché for seers, and that she wasn't interested in playing the role of an augur or an oracle. "Nah, everything I tried just turns out like chickenshit," Nancy answered with a shrug. "I dance though. And sing. Not just to make people's heads explode, though that's fun too." She smirked ever so slightly.

It would've been easy for Nancy to hate singing and dancing because of her mother - but that form of artistic expression always felt liberating to her. She could communicate her emotions and thoughts so much more effectively when she was belting, she could move her body to a rhythm all of her own. Drawing had just never really clicked for her. She absentmindedly rubbed on one of Joanie's ears affectionately. "I'm assuming you draw - that's pretty rad. If you're good at it, of course."

---

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"The entire cab smells like someone took a bloody awful wank in here," Leda added, wrinkling her nose in disgust. "Or a shit. That too." The more she thought about the smell, the worse it became - to the point that she was surprised it hadn't wafted out at them when the doors opened up as the cab picked them up in the first place. Leda couldn't help but wonder if the Mist was capable of masking up smells as well as sights - it was the only explanation that made sense to her.

When they got back to the area they had almost been abducted in, Leda paused to take in their surroundings. There were prisoners in chains being forced to unload trucks, as other cyclopses supervised the work. One of the prisoners Leda recognized - little baby Hercules, only he wasn't a baby anymore. "Hmm. How about you make a big watery mess, get all of their attention? And Arthur, think you could get people off those chains? I can then be speedy and stab the monsters in the back. It'll be risky but I think we could tag team it." They didn't really have very long that they could talk though - eventually some of the cyclopses would be curious as to why their cab was back and no one was leaving.

---

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Janelle was not thrilled with anything currently. Mainly the fact that despite what she actually wanted, she ended up getting shoved into the far back of the van, which made no sense at all with regards to anything. Since it was way more of a hassle to get in and out of the van that way for her since obviously she couldn't see anything and would likely end up hitting someone for some stupid reason, she didn't really get a say in this or whatever.

She was perfectly fine with just ignoring everyone in the car or something really, since she really did not want to talk about what was going on in general, since this was probably the last group of people she'd actually want to go on a quest of any sort with. "Persahnally I dahn't care about goin ahn anahther quest, it's dumb and 'ahnestly dis is prahbably de last group o' people I'd really want to go ahn a quest ahn wit right now." was the only response she gave to Kristin.

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Jason wasn't too sure how everything was going to escalate in general with the whole cyclops thing. The whole situation was a bit weird, considering the fact that they were currently in the middle of a train station, and he wasn't sure how things would look to everyone else when the cyclops Karen decided that it would be fun to attack them. More specifically, the thing decided to grab him and throw him into a wall after Stella's puppy bit her kid. Well the younger cyclops was being a bit annoying anyway so he kind of did deserve it.

Took him a second to get up again and snap out of his daze, and he looked at the Cyclops who was acting a bit crazy, what was to be expected from a cyclops who literally looked like a stereotypical Karen anyway? He drew his own sword, and instantly charged forward, seeing that the other two had managed to injure the cyclops. With a swift strike, he managed to take her down and kill her, meaning they were left now with the younger cyclops still. "So uh, what exactly do we do now?" he couldn't help but ask, as he had no idea what to really do since they did just kill the older cyclops, in the train station, and still had the younger one around.

---

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Well, she had at least successfully disoriented the Sphinx, which was a good thing, it would hopefully allow the others to see about going on with killing the damn thing. The Sphinx went after Andy, but Madalyne managed to protect her with the shield thingy or whatever again. Though she didn't end up being able to protect herself from the Sphinx whirling around a bit and hitting her with the tail and knocking her back. That wasn't really a good thing, and Mary started getting ready to strike at the monster again.

Andy managed to electrocute the monster, which gave her a bit of a simple opening in order to strike again. Since it seemed to be a bit more disoriented then it had been from losing its eye. She charged forward, managed to gouge out the creature's other eye, before whirling around again and stabbing the monster, running it through, and killing it. "Well that was fun, and such a rude thing really, we should probably get a move on already or something."

Arthur Stanford

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Location: Pier
Skills: N/A

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Arthur watched their environment closely, and held his breath at the smell. This was not the fun part of adventuring, it seemed, given the fact that it was everything he had to not throw up in his mouth. He was scared to move, but given the plan, he nodded and said ,"Yeah, I think I can manage that, better than trying to stab these things myself." Plus, his powers were probably ideal for getting those people free, if only because he should be able to just move the chains seamlessly.

Arthur was poised to get out of the cab, but didn't wanna move without the direct go-ahead. " I can go whenever we're all ready, just give me the signal and I'll move." He didn't wanna act on his own, on the off chance that he made a mistake, and the other two ended up being eaten. Getting out of the cab would for sure be the point that they were most likely to be seen at, and he didn't wanna be in charge of determining when it was or wasn't safe to get that in motion.

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Grand Central Station:

With the Karen Cyclops now dead, monster dust covering the floor where she had once stood covering the group in it all, the entitled Cyclops kid started to wail rather loudly as he went over a nearby chair in the station that was bolted down. "YOU KILLED MY MOMMY!" The kid cyclops said as he used it's strength and threw it over at Niah managing to hit her, and knocked her onto the ground as the cyclops then ran over and bit Stella's arm rather hard drawing some blood as well to. Stella's new found friend growled and bit the Cyclops kids face, which made him let go.

"I'm getting my daddy he'll punish you all!" He yelled before quickly leaving the group, whether or not the group decided to follow him and lure more monsters to them or stay in the station until their train arrived when an announcement went off on the intercom. "Train will be arriving in fifteen minutes." The intercom told everyone who was on the platform, in the dust covered ground remained the monster's peruse maybe there was something useful in there.

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Kiera listened to Leda and nodded towards her as she looked around the area, and closed her eyes as she could sense water nearby she opened her eyes and looked over at the scene before her. There was a sewer grate that she could sense water in nearby, as she looked around again and stared at the rooftop of the nearby building seeing two water towers on top of them. "Sounds good to me then one watery distraction coming up." Kiera said as she closed her eyes and sighed as she tried to manipulate the water from both sources, but nothing happened which made her sigh slightly. "One moment.." Kiera said softly slightly embarrassed in front of her girlfriend, as she held out her hand again and concentrated again on the water.

A few seconds later there was a rather loud explosion that happened as water came flowing down off of the roof of a nearby building and onto the area below. Then came another foul stench as Kiera manipulated the water in the sewers sending that out as well, managing to knock a few cyclops off of their feet in the process. Kiera leaned back slightly looking slightly tired after that, she hadn't used her powers this much since their fight in New Rome.

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With the Sphinx now dead, in the dust it had left a trophy for either one of them to pick up as Madalyne made her way over towards it and picked it up, and inspected it. It looked like it was a book of riddles as she looked through the pages before making her way over towards Mary. Like the Greeks the one thing that they had in common surprisingly whoever killed a monster if they left a trophy then it would go to the one who killed it. "Here you go if you want it." Madalyne said to Mary, as her attention turned towards the nearby gate and made her way over towards it. If Mary opened to the last page she'd be able to see what looked to be a map that was constantly changing like the map that the Weasly brothers from Harry Potter had given him in one of the books and movies it was the Labyrinth.

They could either go back, knowing that the Labyrinth was always constantly changing, she wasn't sure where it would lead them and going forward was probably the best thing at the moment. "Are you alright Andy?" Madalyne asked looking at Andy as she inspected the gate, before turning her attention towards a nearby rusty looking pipe and started to jam it into the side of the gate to pry it open. After a few tries she managed to break open the gate and they were able to move forward.

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Kristin looked towards Janelle as she listened to her and nodded slightly as she looked at everyone in the group, it was a rather large group as she turned her attention back towards Janelle. "That I can understand that honestly." Kristin said as she leaned back slightly in her seat and looked out the window for a few minutes, she could see the city was coming up rather quickly as her eyes wondered around the group. Seeing Demetri it looked like he was sulking or something like that, Zeke was talking with Nancy, and Cassian looked like he was drawing at the moment. "It'll be interesting to see how everyone works together." Kristin said giving a slight shrug.

It didn't take them to much longer until they were now just a block away from the Empire State Building itself, and then Argus got out of the van, to let everyone out of the van itself. She sat up slightly as she grabbed her things, Kristin awkwardly moved herself through the van until she was the first one out, waiting for the others to get out as well to.

---

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"I'm fine, thank you." Andy said thank you for more than just asking. She also appreciated the shield that her aunt had given her. "Are you okay?" She asked as Mads pried open the gate. "Was that even allowed? The sphinx said she wouldn't hurt us if we got the riddles, right?"

Andy looked down the hallway as far as she could. She didn't want to be the first to go. But she figured she might as well. Andy kept her dagger out. Ready to be attacked. She didn't want to be caught off guard. After a deep breath. Then started down the hall. She found herself at a split hall way. To the right was a skeleton. She paused, staring at it, trying to determine if it would be a threat or not. She missed Ashe for a moment knowing her friend might have been able to control it. Arthur never really did much with the dead and she understood why.




Niah was totally confused. Normally cyclops would abandon their kids. What was happening? They certainly weren't going to be traveling with a cyclops now. Even though it would have been nice to have a creature that scared off other creatures. But that option was dead to them.

"Grab the purse. It is the trophy from killing the cyclops. Now we either chase the kid or wait and hope he doesn't come back with his dad. I'm gonna chase." Niah said to Jason since he was the one who had made the kill. Niah tried to ignore the fact that he had asked for advice after just yelling at her to stop giving it.

She followed after the kid. Hopefully, they could deal with the kid and his dad before the train arrived. They had fifteen minutes, which was much less than the hour they seemed to have had a bit ago. The kid was running into a large crowd. Niah quickly re-sheathed her sword and it disappeared. She wondered what the Mist had been showing people so far.

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Stella went to put her knife away while still stroking her puppy to calm him more. She had seen the Karen Cyclops mom vanish into a poof of dust, which now made the second time that she had seen a monster poof like that in the last couple of days. However, that was one threat down, and now only the child that had caused all this trouble was left. He had run off, threatening to go get his daddy and have him punish them all. At the same time, the announcement that their train would be arriving in fifteen minutes. That didn't seem right. Had they really been fighting for fourty-five minutes, or dealing with the cyclopses for that long?

Niah took off after the kids, leaving herself and Jason there on the platform. "Should we follow her, or shall we wait?" She didn't feel right just standing their on the platform, waiting for Niah to return. She continued to stroke her puppy softly, petting his ears and back to make sure that he felt comforted in her arms. "How about Arbor for your name? Do you like that?" She whispered to him softly, making sure to speak softly, and try not to upset him.

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Zeke smiled as Nancy told him that she didn't draw but she had other talents that she loved to do. Zeke remembered having conversations like this with Nancy when they were taking a break from practicing archery. He didn't realize how much he had missed conversation with Nancy and all her slang terms until it was gone.
"Ah, I'm not the greatest but I've gotten better with drawing plants but I was thinking we could draw the layout of the hotel." He kept his eyes on his paper while he waited for Nancy's answer.
They reached New York sooner than Zeke realized and soon they were stopped and Kristin was pushing her way out of the van. Ezekiel glanced out the window and noticed the Empire State Building looming down the street. He frowned, wondering why they were at the base of Olympus. It wasn't like they would really get a gods help. If they wanted to help, they would help when they were all dangling above the mouth of a giant.
Zeke got out of the vehicle after Nancy and waited beside the door. Now would be as good of a time as any to talk to Janelle.

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Nancy stiffened up the instant Zeke mentioned drawing the layout of the Lotus Hotel and Casino. She breathed in slowly through her nose, before breathing out gradually. She never wanted to have a meltdown - she never looked forward to having a breakdown. She didn't want to lose her shit in front of the Greeks. In her mind's eye, she focused on Mads and Niah, two people who were counting on her. "No," Nancy said, trying to keep her voice steady, but it more came out hoarse. "Not today." The breakdowns didn't just take a mental toll on her, but a physical one as well. And if she were to have to help Zeke sketch out a map of the Hotel from her memory, she'd rather do it alone, away from the rest of the group.

The van stopped, and Nancy assumed that they must've been in New York City. The skyline looked about right, the buildings were massively tall, and everyone seemed to be walking around with a stick up their ass. Nancy got out of the van, her dragon curled around her shoulders, and she grabbed her bag, slinging it over her shoulder and causing Joanie to briefly move aside, before Joanie resumed her position. "Huh..." Nancy scrunched up her face, turning around and taking in all of the buildings, before asking a question: "Where are the twin towers?"

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"Gods, that's disgusting," Leda complained, as sewer stench filled the air. She made a big show out of holding her breath. However, she couldn't do too much of her burgeoning standup routine as she needed to act quickly. Kiera, her amazing girlfriend, had done a wonderful job of causing a smelly, watery distraction. She trusted that Arthur would be able to get the chains off of people. Leda tugged down her necklace, the necklace coming off of her neck and transforming into her celestial bronze sword, Ultraviolet.

Her sword was glowing a faint shade of red, not indicating anger - but rather that Leda was energized and ready to go. She took off at a sprint, running up at superspeed behind each cyclops in turn, and running them through with the sword. She managed to take out thirteen in this manner, leaving eight more standing. She came to a halt, pausing to catch her breath - and immediately hating herself for it, as her mouth ended up tasting like sewer. "Blehh!!!"

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Demi listened in to the conversations happening around him. Hearing as Janelle mentioned this was the last group she'd want to be on a quest with. He thought back to how Zeke talked about her, mentioning how sweet she was. He didn't see it. Perhaps it was his imagination, or maybe even a bout of jealousy that Zeke had even considered someone else before him, but he couldn't quite see the person he was talking about at this moment. But Demetri didn't say anything. He kept his eyes closed and rummaged through his thoughts as he began to sing Mr. Brightside in his head to drown out the sounds.

As the van began to come to a stop, Kristin pushed her way through the open space leading to the door to go out. Jostling him in his seat and causing him to open his eyes. "Oi, what's the big idea Kris? Couldn't wait for us to get out?" He made his way out of the van, following Zeke and Nancy, walking past the pair to clear the way for Cassian and Janelle to make their way out as well. When Nancy asked the question, Demi simply rubbed the back of his neck, a bad habit he'd picked up from Zeke, as he looked towards her. "Oh hey I learned about that in history class. About four years before I was born, apparently some planes crashed or something into the towers causing them to collapse. I heard it was a devastating time for people."

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Cassian finished working on his sketch while everyone else kept to their own circles. He felt as though it didn't turn out too bad, capturing the feeling that Demetri was putting out at the moment. A part of him wondered what it was that was going through mini-zeus's mind. He began to put his pencils away and pulled out his set of watercolor pencils, sketching out the baseline for the colors he'd need when he has more time later to finish it up. While Demetri had his Polaroid, Cassian would have his art to help him recall his first adventure.

The van began to slow down, and Cassian began to put away all of his supplies and books. He scooted out of the way as Kristin made her way from the back, waiting for Demetri as he pushed passed and then followed right behind. He quickly began to do the mental math, realizing the child of Zeus was older than he was by one year. "I didn't hear about that when I was in school." he said with a bit of a confused look. It seemed odd that his mother would leave out something that seemed to be as important as that.

Arthur Stanford

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Location: Pier
Skills: Ferrokinesis

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Arthur closed his eyes, nervous, and went and took cover, hoping the direct engagement of his allies would keep him personally safe as he formulated what his next moves would be. Getting them free was the obvious move, he just wasn't sure how. He looked at the chains, and reached a hand towards them experimentally. He could just try to lift the chains up and untangle them, and that honestly seemed like the only path forward. So, without further ado, he closed his fist, and tried to lift the chains to free the kids.

But nothing happened. He tried to reach out and use his powers, but something was blocking him. Maybe it was the fact that he wanted to separate his powers into the useable and unusable. Maybe it was the stress of needing to perform and save people, he didn't know, but he couldn't life the chains. He pushed again, and still nothing happened. This started to escalate to an internal panic and worry at the idea of him not being able to do anything, but he pushed that fear down, and used it to try to make his powers work. That seemed to make it work, setting 12 kids free of their chains.

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"I mean, technically dere prahbably are wahrse people to go ahn a quest wit, but yeah, naht too threlled wit dis group," she responded. Though currently she very much did not want to explain to anyone why she didn't want to be hanging around this group of people. Nope, that was not something that she wanted to do or anything. She just wanted to more or less be left alone, but she couldn't exactly do that, since right now, she wasn't even sure what they were doing or where they were going really.

Now Janelle just sort of listened to the others conversation once again as she eventually got out of the van too, being incredibly careful as she did so. The conversation turned to the twin towers in New York, and though she hadn't been born then, she did hear about it when it was mentioned a few things about world history in general, and once she and her brother moved to the US, it was mentioned more then a few times, so she knew the basics of what happened. "So anyone actually know where we're suppahsed to be goin frahm 'ere?" she ended up asking no one in particular.

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"Wow, a purse as a trahphy frahm kellin a mahnster, definitely is weird to me, but whatever," he said with a shrug, grabbing the thing, thinking it was a bit strange overall, but he said nothing else about it. Now, chasing the younger cyclops made the most sense to him, but then he listened to the speaker mention that their train was going to be arriving soon, which meant that they didn't have much time at all to try and chase the younger one and deal with the father, and if they missed the train, they didn't have many resources to get to the opposite side of the country.

He was about to say that, when Niah mentioned going on the chase, and racing off after the cyclops. This was basically a no win situation for them, since they either would miss the train, or risked the older cyclops trying to kill them while they were on said train. This was bad, this was really bad, and he looked at Stella when she asked him if they should follow her. "Dis isn't exactly a situation we can wen, we chase, we resk messin de train and den 'avin to fend a way acrahss de country again. We dahn't, we resk runnin into dem again ahn de train ahr sahmethin. So 'ahnestly I dahn't know."

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"Honestly, don't trust just about any monster when it comes to words that they say. It makes it easier that way," Mary commented with a shrug when Andy spoke about the monster going back on its word. It hadn't surprised her really with regards to it deciding to just lie and attack them anyway. Most creatures could be deceitful if they wanted to be, and that Sphinx clearly had wanted to lie and try to trick them into letting her kill them. That was always fun to think about at the moment really.

She took the book and started flipping through it a bit, before eventually settling on the last page of the book, and she stared a bit at the map as it was shifting around and moving. Glancing back up, she saw that Andy was already heading further inside of the Labyrinth, and Mary followed behind her. "Hold on a second, there's a map here, and it kind of looks like the Labyrinth, so this might be a bit useful to look at for a moment," she said to the pair.

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Grand Central Station:

As Niah ran after the kid she'd get a small glimpse of him rounding a corner at the top of the stairs, however she'd have to make a choice, either continue the chase with the kid and risk another confrontation with one maybe even more cyclops' and miss the train with no money to continue their quest. Or join the others back at the platform and wait for the train to arrive, and get onto the train and continue with the rest of their journey. But also risking the cyclops to pick up their scent and track them down possibly further down the line, whatever choice she made she'd have to make it soon.

If either Jason or Stella chose to open the purse however they'd hit a jackpot, the purse was rather heavy, inside contained a lot of drachmas. There was also three credit cards in the purse as well to, that they could potentially use as well for whatever they needed to continue their trip.

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Kiera did her best to not gag at the stench of the sewer water, she felt bad for people who actually had to work down there and deal with stuff like that and other human waste to which was just as disgusting to her. She shuddered slightly as she looked at her girlfriend and Arthur. "Sorry for the smell you guys." Kiera called out to the both of them, as she ran forward drawing out both of her swords and ran forward, one of the cyclops had his eye set on Arthur. She managed to chop it's head off looking over at Arthur. "Are you alright there?" She asked him, Leda took out most of them, and she took out one which left seven left.

Hercules the Cyclops quickly perked up and instantly recognized who Leda was, she had saved him when he was littler with Kristin and Zeke on their quest. Hercules quickly grabbed one of the chains that was dragging on the ground and quickly picked it up, and swung it at three of the cyclops. Which left four of them left, seeing that they were outnumbered now the group of cyclops quickly fled into their building that they used for their operation.

"Mommy!" Hercules yelled happily as he charged forward and hugged her rather tightly and spun her around. Kiera turned to look at the cyclops that was hugging her girlfriend, she wasn't sure if it could be trusted or not as she looked at Leda. "Do you know him?" Kiera asked her girlfriend, her attention turned to the group of demigod children who were trapped some of them were still in chains trying to get them off. There were around ten of them who were still connected to one another.

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Madalyne looked over at Andy and gave her a friendly smile and nodded. "Yeah i'm fine." She said to her as she followed behind Andy until they reached the split off area, she knelt down to inspect the skeleton. She unfortunately couldn't control ghosts or summon any like some of her other siblings could. Her attention turned towards Andy ands shrugged slightly, monsters were always deceitful a lot of the time as well. "What Mary said, don't trust anything what a monster says unless you get it to swear on the styx then it's binding." Madalyne told Andy as she looked around, finding a celestial bronze dagger on the skeleton and picked it up. It could be useful in the future as Madalyne turned to face Mary.

She was actually interested in the map as she moved over to look at it, the map looked like it was ever changing like the legends said, as she looked at Mary. "Alright that does seem really useful." Madalyne said as she thought for a moment looking it over, it didn't look like it revealed anything about monster movements though but it did point out where they were. "Ask it something see if something happens." Madalyne suggested to Mary.

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"Sometimes enclosed spaces get me nervous i'm sorry." Kristin said looking at Demetri giving him a slightly annoyed look, sometimes she did get claustrophobic as she leaned herself up against the side of the van as everyone started to get out of the van. She looked at Nancy asking about the Twin Towers some of the others filled her in but she had read a lot of news articles about the event. "September eleventh, two thousand one a group of terrorists took over a few planes, and attacked a few places two crashed into the World Trade Center, and one into the Pentagon and the other I believe somewhere in a field in Pennsylvania." Kristin told her, as Janelle got out of the van Argus looked at the group, and gave them a smile and nod before heading back into the van. Kristin pointed out to the largest building in the distance. "Thats Freedom Tower over there it overlooks where the Two Towers once stood." Kristin told the group.

"Grand Central Station would be the place to go probably for bus or train tickets to where we need to go." Kristin suggested the group, whichever they decided to go it would be a long journey to go. Kristin stopped leaning against the van as Argus started pulling out and made his way back to Camp Half-Blood.

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Demetri gave Cassian a bit of an odd look as the cherub child mentioned how he was never taught about September 11th. "Maybe you called in sick or something? Seems odd they'd just skip over it in school." His attention quickly turned towards Kristin, as he lightly jabbed the ground with the toes of his shoe. "I get that, I'm not claustrophobic or anything but I get the same way with heights. No harm no foul, just a bit of light teasing was all." Zeke had hardly said a word edgewise, but he was seemingly sticking close to Nancy. He got it, siblings ' first trip and all that. And with Janelle here he was sure it was difficult for Zeke to be his boyfriend without drawing attention.

There was a short sigh with his mind, a mental pause to allow himself to acknowledge and move past the fact that this quest and time away with Zeke may not be exactly as how he'd imagined it. There would be no cuddling under the stars as they camped outside, or sharing snacks and favorite treats at stations they passed by. So he decided to focus on other things. "So what's freedom tower? Looks impressive, but can't say I know anything about it? Wanna give us a walking tour as we make our way over towards Grand Central Station? Oh and any chance we can hit a few stops along the way. I've never been to New York before so I have a load of things I'd love to do."

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Cassian looked past Demetri at the space behind him. Thinking about what he'd said. He didn't exactly want to state he was homeschooled so sick days weren't exactly a thing, but then they might view him even stranger than they already did. He got teased enough growing up because he didn't attend regular schooling. He didn't need it from his camp mates either. "Must've been sick then, or even dozed off. History wasn't exactly my strong suit." Hearing what Kristin had said though, what appeared to be several coordinated attacks against high profile locations, a part of him wondered if it was human malice or another demi-god / monster problem.

His mother had taught him enough about how some past wars had been about fights between the gods' children. How history was shaped and molded by the children born on this earth, so was this simply another one of those moments? Cassian tried not to think about it. Part of why he revered his father so much was because of what he gave humans. Revelry, freedom, what many viewed as chaotic was liberation. He wasn't just the God of Parties, he could be an inspiration for those who wished to fight the oppressive regimes of others by releasing their inhibitions and being true to themselves. "So which way?"

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Andy wasn't surprised by Mary and Mads response. She had met some good-natured monsters. Even ones that weren't naturally that way. She had her griffin and the shadow puppy as examples of that. She looked up at Mary as she said the book might have a map of the Labyrinth.

Andy stood on her toes to look at the map. She didn't know how to read a map at all, so to her, it was a bunch of lines and stuff. It didn't help that it moved. How was anyone supposed to get help from a map like that? During her travels alone, she had used things like google maps, but that was different than a traditional map.




Niah watched the kid round the corner and knew the chase was futile. She had hoped the dad was close and they'd be able to get the fight over quickly. But it wasn't worth it between the train showing up soon and the kid going farther than she anticipated. She started to say something but realized neither of the others had followed her.

Niah made her way back to the others. "The kid might be running all the way home for all I know. He went around a corner. So unless the dad shows up in the next few minutes, we might not have to worry. Though I would say, my biggest fear is the guy shows up just before the train, and we end up fighting him and miss the train that way." She shook her head, annoyed. "Anyway, what did the cyclops drop?"

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Stella shrugged a bit as Jason said that a purse was a weird trophy from a monster. She hadn't really fought enough monsters to know or not know what a normal trophy was. Last time it had been the tail, and she had given that to Marygold, as it had been her kill. This one belonged to Jason, as he had been the one to finish the cyclops off. She wasn't going to try to take it from him, not like that other girl had tried to do to Marygold on her first day at camp. She blinked as she realized it hadn't even been a full day and she was already thinking of the first day as a long time ago. It felt like almost a year ago.

When Niah returned she offered her a small smile and relaxed. "It seems she dropped her purse. I don't know what's in it, since it's Jason's I figure. But waiting for the train seems reasonable, unless the dad catches up with us." She frowned a bit at that idea, as she really didn't want to get into another fight and miss the train they had just thrown all their money at. She checked on her little pupper, and pet Arbor lovingly, and nuzzled him. He seemed calm down, and like a normal little puppy at this point again.

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Everyone seemed to cover the 9/11 incident so Ezekiel didn’t bother chiming in with his two cents. Instead, he looked at Janelle after Kristin announced they should go to grand central for tickets. Which made sense but then why did Argus drop them off so far away?
”Hey, Janelle, can we talk for a second?” He attempted to keep his voice down so the others didn’t butt into the conversation. If she wanted to talk to him, it would be hard enough to prevent curious glances from the others. While he waited for her reply, he overheard Demetri and turned his head to look at Demi with disbelief in his eyes.
”Demi… this isn’t a field trip. The gods are sending us on a trip that could spell life or death for many people. We’ll be lucky to make it to Grand Central without something trying to eat us.” It was bad enough there were so many of them in a group and a child of the big three. ”It would be better if we keep moving, I think.”