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Nancy wished Zeke hadn't been there. She wished it had just been her and Kristin, that she could've punched the other girl over and over again until her knuckles bled - that she would've been picking stray fragments of Kristin's teeth out of her hair until the next solstice. It would've felt good to become an atomic bomb, to let all of the pressure inside of her explode outwards, to feel the vibrations of her voice curl around everything in a 10 mile vicinity and lacerate it until it was nothing. She wanted to transform into just a force of anger and fury, to burn everything that was in her path. Nancy wanted to be a destroyer.

Her body tensed, and the imperial gold daggers vanished from her hands. Nancy clenched her fists and swallowed that demonic part of her self whole. She managed it this time. But maybe next time, she wouldn't. "You shouldn't offer to fight me. I go for blood," Nancy told Zeke darkly, a warning. She had stepped away from that precipice. But maybe next time, she'd let her anger consume her - and let it brutalize all in her path.

"I'm not going back with them. I'm done. You can all go save the world on your own. I'll be fine. I'm always fine." She didn't fully know what she was going to do. But even as she said the words, a part of her realized how futile they likely would be. She knew she'd return to the Lotus Hotel and Casino - she knew that she would be thrown into the crucible. She just didn't know who would emerge.

---

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Leda didn't take her eyes off of Kiera until she went around a turn, vanishing from sight. A melancholic acceptance settled over her bones. She forced a smile onto her face, but it didn't reach her eyes. "Right then. If anything gets real twisted, I want you to run - or swim or whatever - as fast as you can. Don't stop till you get back to Camp Fish-blood. Understood? If you argue with me, I'll dunk you in the toilets when we get back to Camp Half-blood," Leda instructed Sera, joking and serious at the same time. She needed to keep Sera safe. Sera didn't have the same amount of experience as Leda did. And she was so incredibly young.

She surveyed the scene ahead of them. Oceanus had gone into a massively guarded cave with the trident. There didn't look to be any easy access points. "Hold on a mo' - I'm going to go scout, see where's easiest to get in, if I'm fast enough they won't be able to see me... I think," Leda proposed. She didn't give Sera a chance to argue about it. She also just hoped that no one noticed the rainbow blur zipping around the cave. She took off at a run, going as fast as she could. On her first pass, she didn't see anything interesting. On the second pass though, she saw it - a small opening in the wall of the cave, big enough for a demigod to slip on through. She dashed back to next to Sera, having spent only seconds running. "Alright, there's a crack we go on through. I can't carry you and the trident. I can zip us on in together, but going out, you'll have to run. Are you good with that? I can go in alone as well, luv, if you'd like."

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She wasn't entirely sure what sort of situation was going on with the others outside currently. Especially when it came to the fighting it sounded like was about to occur outside. Janelle wasn't entirely sure what to say or think at this point, as Nancy seemed to be about ready to kill Kristin, and Zeke was trying to stop it from what she was hearing. This wasn't exactly a good thing, and considering how things were going, she wondered if maybe she should try to do something.

Though that train of thought ended when Zeke seemingly was calming down, Janelle made her way over towards where she heard Kristin's voice coming from, "Maybe we should go back inside? Ahr maybe naht, I'm fine wit dat option sence you all took ahff and left me wit a moron... Bu dahn't push it ahr anythin ahkay?" she said kind of quietly directly to Kristin, keeping her voice somewhat quiet and even. Pushing the situation with Nancy was not a good idea at all.

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The dumb box of snakes was being incredibly loud, not exactly something he really wanted to deal with at the moment. There was the whole question of what they were going to do with the box, since they obviously couldn't just leave the crate at the hotel like that. Someone could end up getting hurt or something like that from it. But they did have to figure out what to do with it right now. They were all exhausted, so they really just needed to get some sleep.

Listening to Niah's suggestion, Jason managed to grab the crate again and move it into the bathroom, before shutting the door once the crate was inside. "We just need to remember it is dere in case anyone needs to just walk in dere," he commented as the question about what to actually do with the crate popped up. "If we 'ad a way to take dem wit us, who knows when dey might actually be useful..."

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Well things seemed to be going at least a little better for them at the moment, as they were still putting a decent amount of distance between them and the flesh eating horses. Which meant that they might be able to take a bit of a breather soon. They really needed to be able to relax for longer then what felt like 5 minutes, so here was hoping that things would work out in the long run for them. At least when it came to this sort of thing at the moment.

Her attention was drawn towards Damon mentioning a cave they could maybe hide out in to rest. Mary was happy about hearing that sort of thing, since it had felt like days since they had left the camp, when in reality it probably wasn't even one full day. It also felt like they'd been constantly moving around without much chance for a breather or a place to rest. "Well here's hoping we can catch our breaths a little bit..." she said, though it was weird how eerily quiet it was currently.

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Harrisburg, Hotel near, Amtrak Train Station:

The night was pretty peaceful for the most part for the group and luckily there weren't anymore encounters with any more monsters while the group slept and changed watch duties throughout the night. However in the morning the group could hear the hissing sound getting a lot louder than it should have been. If anyone opened the door to the bathroom, they would notice a tiny hole in the crate the basilisk were certainly busy as it looked like they had just broken out now. One of them slipped through the hole and spat some acid directly onto the floor vent of the bathroom and slipped in and another one looked like it was poking it's head out now and quickly made it's way down into the vent same as the first one. Looks like the group would have to deal with their little guests now before more of them could escape the crate.

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Kiera moved her hippocampi luckily she wasn't noticed by any of Oceanus' men who were down below, it looked like they were just camping or resting for now which was good then. Camp Fish-Blood would have some time to try and repair and regroup and work on a better defense for now, her eyes wondered around as she hopped off of her hippocampi. She inspected the cliff face as she looked around for a week point and noticed a rather large crack. She closed her eyes and started to use her powers with the water all around her, and started to push the current as hard as she could into the crack. Sand from the ocean floor started to move rather violently now as she continued to use the water it was going to be really hard as she concentrated.

Once Leda Sera moved forward into the little opening that Leda had found, the cave looked very massive it looked like Oceanus had been making this place his temporary home, and they would be able to see him swimming over towards what looked like a throne nearby. There were a few guards in the area in the form of telekines and cyclops as well as a few sirens to here and there. Oceanus himself set Poseidon's trident against the throne and headed down a nearby hallway they weren't spotted yet luckily.

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The night had been pretty quiet for the most part despite being where they were now in the Labyrinth, the group would get some shuteye, Madalyne slowly started to wake up to the sound of a campfire nearby. She slowly started to sit up and stretched slightly her eyes going over to Damon, it looked like he had gone hunting at some point as he noticed some dead rabbits. "Good morning." Damon said to her as Madalyne smiled slightly as she stood up and made her way over towards the campfire he offered her a cantine of water which she accepted and took a few sips from it.

Her eyes wondered over towards Mary and Andy wondering when they would be able to wake up as she reached over to grab some of the cooked rabbit from Damon and took a few bites of it. She much prefered to have some food back at Camp Jupiter or even Camp Half-Blood now at this point at least they had some food. "Thank you." Madalyne said as Damon nodded and leaned back slightly eating some of his rabbit as well to, it looked pretty nice out surprisingly as well and quiet to for now.

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Kristin looked between Nancy and Zeke, maybe sometime between siblings could help cool things down as Zeke nudged her to go back with the others, and she heard Janelle's voice and nodded towards her. "We should head back, and get the others back to the train station." Kristin said to Janelle, looking back at the two of them. "Just uh take your time and meet you back at the station." Kristin said to Zeke, gently tapping Janelle to follow her back to the Burger King. When she entered the restaurant again, she was surprised to see a god cleaning up Nancy's mess. She thought about making a comment but Kristin had a feeling that the god would end up smiting her or something like that.

"Well this trip certainly has been interesting so far." Kristin said looking over towards Janelle, she wasn't sure if they would all end up getting to their destination if their group didn't end up killing one another before then. "Sorry for leaving you with them by the way." Kristin said to Janelle, she wanted to try and keep the group together as best as she could but everyone seemed to be at each other's throats right now.

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Andy had slept surprisingly well. She woke to the smell of food cooking and the fire crackling. She lay there a moment longer gathering her bearings. This was not some homeless camp. This was the Labyrinth. And she had slept as if she had known what a monster was. She remembered getting the knife from the old man. Remembered his knowing smile as he told her she'd find it useful. She had thought the knife was strange at the time. It was magical. She could pull it from a bracelet and it would be full in her hand. The metal had been strange, like nothing she had seen before.

And the monster had almost killed her. She had run but it had knocked her down. She hadn't been fast enough. In the struggle, she had been lucky to get the knife free. Lucky in the stab. She had expected blood but none had come. A cloud of fine dust fell instead. She hadn't known then what that meant. She had tried to find the old man again, but even though she asked around no one knew who she was asking about. She never saw the guy again. But he had known. He had saved her. With that single gift, her whole life had changed.

She thought of Arthur and his hatred of killing monsters. She wondered if he had had to kill anything since camp. She wondered where he was and what he was doing. Chocolate had come to her. He now lay curled up beside her. His breathing was soft and steady. Andy missed Arthur. She missed camp. She missed her brother. It was a deep sudden ache as she lay there. She curled up tighter around Chocolate. Then stood suddenly and joined her Aunt at the fire.

Aunt Mads was related to her in a different way. There wasn't much tracking of human lines at Camp. But Mads had proof of it. They were related. It had been unexpected but welcome. It meant she wasn't alone. Even though she knew Mads would soon be taken from her. That thought hurt a lot too. But she knew Arthur and Mads friends would help get her back. That made it okay.

"Morning." She said, leaning a little into her Aunt for comfort. Chocolate sitting on her other side.




Niah had had midwatch. The worst of all. But waking up to a full bladder and the knowledge they needed to get going to catch the train pushed her to go to the bathroom. The fuzzy memory of the snakes the night prior clarified as she watched two of them disappear into the vents. Ugh.

Why couldn't the guy have had a better cage for the snakes? She didn't particularly want to just kill them, two had escaped and she doubted there was any getting them back. She grabbed a towel and shoved it into the hole of the cage. That'd hopefully buy them some time to deal with those.

The hole in the floor was another matter. The damage that had been done to this hotel room was obscene. "We should leave some cash or something as a way of apology. I could probably cover this up again, but I don't know how much good it'll do. We need to decide what to do with the snake things now." She looked at the other two. "We can release them to cause havoc for someone else. Or kill them and send them to Tartus until they reform. There was no other option. They were not bringing the creatures with them.

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Zeke was aware of Janelle's presence, but Kristin was already handling that, so he stayed present with Nancy. He smiled crookedly at Nancy’s threat, not able to help himself. Nancy’s fire was what made her, her. It was her cocoon as much as it was her personality. ”Good. I’d expect nothing less out of a future hunter.” If she weren’t worried about taking out family, she wouldn’t make it as a hunter, but because she backed down, it showed integrity and loyalty. It also lessened the tension in Zeke’s chest. He didn’t want to battle his sister.
Ezekiel glanced around them when Nancy refused to go to the hotel and that she was done with the quest. He wished they never needed her in the first place. He thought it cruel to make her go back to that hell hole. His hands balled into fists once more as he thought about punching his father in the face and the people that trapped Nancy there in the first place. Ezekiel stared at one spot for a long time, breathing deeply to calm himself before he looked at his half-sister.
”Then let’s go. I hate this stupid quest anyways. Besides, I punched a god in the face. I highly doubt my absence will be missed. It might save everyone else if I leave.” Deep down, Zeke wanted to add that they couldn’t go. He wanted to add that this was Nancy’s chance to get her revenge. To burn the bloody place to the ground before she left for the Hunters of Artemis. To fight next to him in a real battle before she left him forever.

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Location: New York City

Skills: Hydrokinsis

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"I'll run/swim as fast as I can, I wont argue with you Leda." The young demigod really didnt want to piss off the older girl. She was sure Leda would dunk her in the toilets and that wouldn't be pleasant even if she wouldn't really get wet from it. "Well, lets go in together. Im sure I'll be able to swim super fast and not get caught at all by Oceanus." Sera figured she'd be able to rush around in the water anyways being a Poseidon child and all that. So she wasn't super worried about the get away too much, well at least she was trying to be optimistic about this whole situation. "I'll be right behind you."

The girl heads through the crack with Ledas quick speed, it was pretty cool being in a rainbow. Sera sees that theres a throne and thankfully Oceanus had left the room to go down some hallway to who knows where.

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Thankfully they stored those awful snakes away in the Bathroom, so Arbor did calm down enough so that when her turn came, Stella could get some sleep. She was curled up with her pupper, using him as a bit of a pillow, but he was also using her as a pillow as well. It did seem that their luck wasn't holding out for too much longer once the morning came and they found that the crate had some small holes in it, and it seemed that a few had escaped by that point. Stella rubbed her eyes sleepily as she watched the basilisk slip into the vent and then groaned a bit as she looked up at the two older demi-gods.

"Sadly I don't think we can let them run amuck, as they are causing property damage. We might have to... send them to Tartarus... I know it's not their fault that they're here, but we can't just leave them here for the mortals to deal with." She was petting Arbor's ears again to having him calm down again, as he was starting to get riled up again. She did feel bad for the creatures, but she knew that they couldn't stay on the mortal plane, not here in this hotel.

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Cassian stepped out of the stall wearing a new set of clothes. He hated the idea of just tossing his shirt into the trash with Demetri’s, but he figured the child of Zeus was right. The last thing they needed on a cross country road trip was to have clothing with rotting milk sitting in their bags as they made the trek. He tossed both the shirts into the trash can inside the bathroom before looking towards Demetri. "Thanks…I appreciate the help."

Demi waited inside in the event Cass needed more help. Luckily for him it didn't appear he'd need to sneak into the Ladies room after all. "Much better mate. Now let's try not to get any more shakes poured on us alright? Actually, maybe just avoid Nancy all together…no offense." he said with a bit of a shrug. Those two seemed to be like oil and water. Then again Nancy felt that way with most all the Greeks it seemed. But Demi still had hope for her yet.

Cassian opened his mouth to retort but then promptly closed it. Arguing wouldn't do them any good and clearly he'd done something to upset her. But if keeping quiet and out of her way was what was needed for the quest, perhaps that's what he should do. He made his way past Demetri, pushing the door open a crack until he saw Janelle and Kristin walk in. "Kristin and Janelle are here, but no sign of Zeke or Nancy and…is Alexios cleaning?"

"Party boy couldn't keep his mouth shut so I gave him a task with alone time to figure out what he did was wrong. Though…why isn't Zeke and Nancy back yet? And why's she here again? Janelle just stormed out before I came in. Not that I was complaining about that. Only seems to talk to me to yell at me." Demi remarked as he pressed his back against the wall. He didn't exactly want to go back out to face Alexios or Janelle.

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"You punched a shitty god in the face," Nancy muttered. She knew as soon as she said it that it probably wasn't the best idea, as Alexios could definitely hear her, but she realized right then that she didn't care. Being afraid of him was only going to give him more power over her. And she didn't want to give him an inch. Was he the one who had hurt her? No. But an out of control party had been the circumstances that had led to the assault - for better or worse, she'd always associate parties with that. Same thing with drinking and drugs and swanky hotels. They all reminded her of that night. They were the wound that would never heal, that would never become a scar and fade away.

Even all these years later, Nancy was still bleeding. She still couldn't get the stain off of her hands.

Still though, even in her anger she was touched by Zeke's compassion. Not many people would offer to defy the gods for someone else. She knew for a fact that no one else on this quest would have done it. And as angry as she was, she knew that skipping out on this quest... it might condemn Mads forever. Her emotions were all twisted up. She did want to save the world. She couldn't let the flames consume her friends. She just couldn't stand the idea of doing it with these Greeks. They could all go to Tartarus for what she cared.

She hesitated for a moment, taking a deep breath, before turning to Zeke. "Screw them. We can do this on our own. If Dad's really changed, then at first light he's going to give us a ride. We'll make our own way. And we'll stop these assholes. We don't need the rest of them to find the door. And honestly, they can't do it without us. The Lotus Hotel will eat them alive." Her voice was dark, with an edge sharper than a well-kept knife. Her heart was pounding. As difficult as it was to talk about that place, her anger and fury was helping at the moment, keeping her from crumbling to pieces at the mere mention. She'd ride this fury all the way to the Sin City. "Are you with me?"

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Leda smiled, happy to see that Sera wasn't going to argue with her. She wished every questing partner she had was this agreeable. Of course, the last quest she had been on had been with Kristin and Zeke, both of which were stubborner than the gods. Gods, Leda hated them. She hoped they were both fretting and worrying themselves to death back at Camp Half-blood, wondering if everyone else would save the world. She didn't know that they were on a quest themselves at the moment. She put a finger to her lips, indicating for Sera to be quiet. Oceanus had set the trident down near the throne, before swimming off to do whatever the fuck it was Oceanus did before trying to murder a bunch of innocent people. She bet he was looking at dirty magazines.

At any rate, while there were still guards, this seemed as good a chance as any. Leda moved faster than the eye could see on over to the throne, snatching up the trident. It shrunk in her hands until it was just about six feet tall or so - a helpful feature, as otherwise she had NO IDEA how they were gonna get it out of there. It was really heavy though. Leda would've muttered about how dumb it was for a magic weapon to match the size of the person holding it, but not the strength - only it would've given her away. Instead, she continued in her run, only coming to a stop when she was crouching down next to Sera again, this time with trident in hand.

As far as she could tell, there wasn't anything visibly wrong with the trident - it was just HEAVY AF. "That was too easy," she whispered to Sera. "I don't trust it, mate. But this is also our best shot at ending him. Sending him down the monster garbage chute. Give your dad his kingdom back and restore a bit of balance. You can go find your sister or... you can come with me and we can try to end this."

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The commotion was definitely a bit interesting to listen to, and she didn't think much of it with regards to what was up with Nancy. Truthfully she personally understood Nancy's blowup when she more or less explained the situation. She wasn't going to ask specifically about what had happened with her at the hotel, she had figured it was pretty bad overall from how she had been reacting to even going. That hadn't even really crossed her mind as a potential reason, but she had been fine with leaving her be about the whole thing.

"Interestin is naht 'ow I'd wahrd dings," she commented towards Kristin with regards to everything, and when she mentioned the whole leaving her alone more or less with Demi and Alexios to say the least that had not been a good thing at all was an understatement. "Yeah well, I 'ad been contemplatin figurin out a way to knahck Demetri out ahr sahmethin but figured doin dat right next to de god ahr whatever was prahbably naht a good idea, so dahn't do dat again, ever."

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He had been kind of glad that they had managed to sort of have a decent amount of sleep, give or take the rude interruption from the Cyclops earlier in the evening. Jason wasn't sure how they could run off of so little sleep if they kept getting attacked in the middle of the night, though he was used a little bit at least to running off of a little sleep, sometimes having played sports was useful in certain aspects. Namely dealing with the lack of sleep because of school and practice and all sorts of other crazy things going on.

When he heard the snakes though, that made things not so great, and he walked over to see what was going on in the bathroom where they had left the crate. The crate the snakes had been in clearly wasn't built the best, and Niah was currently seeing about plugging up the hole they had caused in the ground. "I can kell dem real quick if you two want me to... Doubt we can catch de ahther two." he said towards the pair.

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The night being quiet was a blessing really, especially considering the fact that they were in the Labyrinth. Mary was at least glad to get some sort of sleep without anymore sort of issues with having to wake up or take off in general again. She saw when she woke up that seemingly everyone else was already starting to sort of mingle about the cave as they all were already awake. Mary was wondering what their next move was going to be, or even more specifically where they were going.

"Morning everyone. Or at least kind of morning since not sure what the actual time is at the moment is, but guessing it is probably somewhere around there," she said as she walked over towards where the others were. "So who all is ready to get this whole quest over with and then take off out of here back to camp already?" she ended up asking them, looking around at everyone.

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Harrisburg, Hotel near, Amtrak Train Station:

The crate started to rattle some more as the basilisks in the crate were getting restless now as some more acid was now slowly seeping from the hinges of the crate and then the remaining four basilisks were suddenly now free. One of them targeted Stella and lunged at her neck and started to try and choke her with it. Then the other two basilisks went after Jason one of them spitting acid at him but missed, while the other one wrapped around his legs trying to trip him over. The last one managed to spit some acid onto Niah's leg causing some serious burns to it.

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Kiera managed to get the job done as the ground started to shake with the water pressure and flow managed to get a decent chunk of the cliff face to break down, and it started to fall down onto the army below killing whoever was dumb enough to be under it. Kiera leaned back slightly as she took a deep breath she was really tired from it taking a lot out of her. Kiera quickly would hop onto her hippocampi and moved it directly towards the entrance where Oceanus had gone into. She managed to catch up with her girlfriend and Sera seeing the two of them and her girlfriend holding Poesidon's trident was kind of hot. "Shall we try and take him out now?" Kiera asked Leda and Sera figuring that they had the numbers now.

However the cave seemed to be unstable now, as the ground around them shook violently and their only escape was quickly sealed as a small cave in happened. Leaving the three of them alone to deal with the guards that were inside and Oceanus himself, there was some loud barking that could be heard as the telekines were now on alert and quickly went to investigate what was going on one of them noticed that the trident was now missing and quickly went to get their leader.

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Madalyne looked over at Andy and gave her a friendly smile as she gently wrapped her arm around her niece, she enjoyed the touch she cared for her niece. But she knew that it wouldn't last long, she knew that she wasn't going to make it in this quest at all as Mary woke up and joined them. "Ready as i'll ever be." Madalyne said as Damon went and prepped some plates for the two of them as well to, as he looked at the three of them. He figured that they needed some kind of plan to get inside the complex or whatever it was at the center of this area of the Labyrinth. "Did you guys sleep well?" Madalyne asked both Mary and Andy.

"So I scouted the area a few times before a few times in the past, the main enterance is guarded the last time I saw, but there is a small passage that I noticed that isn't guarded we can sneak in." Damon said looking at the three girls before him, he was more than ready get out of here. He then got up and grabbed the makeshift map that he had made and showed the girls the night before and pointed towards it, if Mary looked at it she would notice the small entrance that Damon was mentioning. "Have you been in it before?" Madalyne asked as he looked up at him and shook his head slightly. "Nope, never did." He said to her which she thought was a little bit weird.

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Kristin looked at Janelle and nodded towards her, she really did feel bad for leaving her alone with probably the people that she disliked the most at the moment. "I'll make sure it won't happen again then." Kristin said to Janelle gently resting a hand on her shoulder and gave her a slight smile. "We should probably let them know that we are heading back to the train station then." Kristin said as she made her way towards the boys restroom and knocked on the door. "We are heading back to the train station you should meet us there when you are done cleaning up." Kristin said as she made her way back to Janelle. "Lets head on back." Kristin said to Janelle she then made her way to Zeke. "Hey we are heading back to the train station meet you guys there alright?" Kristin said.

Alexios was listening in on the conversations that were going on, thanks to his godly hearing and smiled slightly hoping that Nancy and Zeke found their own way to the Lotus Hotel, that way he'd have some more private time with his betrothed. He was slightly annoyed that the child of Athena was more or less making fun of him for cleaning, but decided to not do anything about it.

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Location: New York City

Skills: Hydrokinsis

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The ground shaking made Sera realize that Kiera must've been able to do her part of the job. She saw the older girl and smiled happily. "Yeah! Lets take him out. We have a huge powerful weapon in our hands, so its make it easier to do." A team of three taking on the titan would be the perfect tactic rather than just two of them. Rumbling made her nerves spark up to fear as the cave shook. Suddenly seeing that their only way out was now gone. "Merde..." She cursed under her breath. Now they were stuck in a cave with scary Telekines and Oceanus. They'd have to deal with these enemies sooner than planned. And hopefully they'd be able to get out afterwards.

She really didn't like the idea of being trapped in a cave. "Well.... lets hope we can get out of here after getting rid of Oceanus. Maybe there's another way out somewhere. If not... we'll have to somehow get rid of all those rocks so we can escape."

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Andy enjoyed the warmth of her Aunt's hug. She savored it. "Yeah, surprisingly well." She answered. Then listened to the conversation about where they were going next. "And that will take us to where this sword is?" Even though it had only been a day technically since they had left camp it felt like it had been ages.

Andy pet Chocolate. She ate some of the breakfast and considered the entrance Damon was indicating. It would be safer since it had no guards. Andy wanted to ask Mary if that matched up with their map, and what it was telling them to do. She wanted to believe and trust Damon, but he had started their relationship by holding a knife to her throat so she didn't completely. But Andy wasn't about to let him know she didn't trust him by having Mary confirm it right in front of him.




"Yeah, I think we must -" Niah started when they got free from the cage and started attacking them. She cursed as her leg was burned by the acid. "Tae!"

Niah drew her sword and swiped at the snake that had just spit acid on her. It pulled back and she missed, but her backswing hit the snake killing it. She swung the sword at the other snake that was not currently wrapped around her group. She hit the other one, and it was still alive so again on the backswing she was able to kill it.

"Stella," Niah said, turning to the girl to try to help her out.

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Nancy’s fire still burned behind her eyes and in her words. Ezekiel knew she was barely hanging on, but he was glad she was trying. He listened to her words and her plan. He glanced up at the sky, finding it difficult to believe that Apollo would help them. He looked back at Nancy, his mind already made up. He wouldn’t abandon her. Demetri was going to kill him. Or marry a god.

Ezekiel grinned at Nancy. ”Until the bitter end.”

Kristin’s voice reached them again, and Zeke turned to look at her, frowning slightly. She didn’t know when to quit. She informed them they were heading back to the train station, and Ezekiel nodded.

”Ya, we’ll meet you there,” he assured her and he wasn’t lying. They would meet up with them. Eventually.

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Stella could hear the hissing intensify as they got closer to the crate until the basilisks seemed to free themselves and launched from the crate. She didn't really have much of a warning as one landed on her and started to wrap around her neck, attempting to choke her. She raised her hand and attempted to grasp at the creature, clawing at it to get it off. It was as if she had forgotten she had access to a weapon, or to her powers or anything else as she tried to wrest the creature from around her neck and was failing. She could feel that it was starting to get harder and harder to breath with every moment.

Arbor did not forget that he had access to some very important tools in his arsenal and left forward to defend his mistress. He jumped up and latched on with his teeth and managed to tear the creature away from around the neck of the young woman, and whipped it around in his jaws as he growled. Stella gasped as it became easier to breath again and looked over at her puppy and smiled softly. "Good...boy..." She could only whisper out softly.

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"I mean from the sounds of it, you did steal her man. So I can see why she'd be angry at you." Cassian didn't mean to sound so blunt, but between Janelle and Demi’s bellyaching he figured someone had to say something. He closed the door when he saw that Kristin was about to make her way over towards the restrooms, knowing Demi had just mentioned he wasn't ready to go back out yet. "Look, you don't have to like each other, but I'd rather not live the rest of my teenage days stuck in a Burger King restroom if it's all the same to you." He gave Demi a pointed look, feeling the vibrations on the door as Kristin knocked against it before speaking.

There was a long pause of silence, neither one of them responding back towards her as they heard her footsteps receding down the hall away from them. Demetri let go of a breath he'd been holding since he saw Cass close the door. Rolling his eyes at the child of Dionysus as he crossed his arms. "I didn't steal anybody. Zeke made his choice. Besides, I'm the one who spent all summer with him. Held his hand, took him on mini sort of dates, or as much as you could get away with while sneakin about a camp. What'd she do? Pine? Wait? That's not my fault. Hell to be honest…sigh to be honest I didn't even think he was interested at first. Felt like we'd just be good mates, frenemies ya know? So when he'd asked I…it doesn't matter."

Demi was done having to have this conversation. They'd just gotten together the morning of the quest and already everything seemed to be going south. He was certain the whole Alexios factor didn't help any either, honestly he was surprised it wasn't enough to scare him off already. Though he figured Zeke might have some strong words for him on the next night watch they took, assuming Alexios didn't butt in. "I'm just glad that I have him in my life you know? I just want to be happy and in turn make him happy as well. He stuck by me this far and now that we're together I feel like we can take on anything."

"That's not fair, Demetri. You don't know what Janelle was doing or planning. You should try and see things from her point of view. Then again she should see them from yours too. But how do you think it makes her feel that suddenly you not only get to have the guy she'd wanted, but also a god to boot? It's enough to drive anyone crazy. Though…we should probably head back to the station with Alexios. We don't want to miss our train." Cassian moved back from the door, opening it as he stood in the door frame waiting for Demetri to move.

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Nancy nodded grimly at Zeke's assertion he would be with her until the bitter end. If everything worked out as it should, she would never age. She would always look to be on the cusp of adulthood. He would grow older, wrinkles covering his face, his vision failing, and his hair falling out along with his teeth. And then one day, he would die. And she would still be on the cusp of adulthood. She would stand by him until his end; but he could not stand by her until hers. But maybe they would both die in this conflict. Maybe then the vow would hold.

The hair on the back of her neck stood up as she heard Kristin's voice. She had to resist the urge to pull her blades and skin the demigod alive. What part of not coming did Kristin not understand? Did she think Nancy was just being dramatic and would end up doing this quest with them? Prophecies be damned, Nancy had found her workaround, and it didn't involve her having to work with Kristin or any of the others. She'd go to the grotesque hotel with Zeke. What the others did there, wandering around the Casino like zombies, well that was not any of her business. "Is she fucking deaf?" Nancy growled under her breath.

Irritation aside, they'd need to find a place to shelter down for the night. "Let's go find some shelter. I'd rather not sleep on the street." She wasn't thinking though about paying for a motel. Truthfully, she was thinking about finding some building that seemed reasonably safe - a school, maybe - and breaking in. They had to wait for first light if they were going to catch a ride from the Sun Chariot. Nancy hoped their asshole dad had been eavesdropping and knew they needed a ride.

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Much faster than even the speedster could've anticipated, Kiera was back from her mission and here to rejoin them. A small part of Leda was angry about that - she'd rather her girlfriend be out of harm's way, farm from Oceanus. But that wasn't the life of a demigod. And Leda wasn't going to keep Kiera like some prized flower, wilting away inside a jar. She would rather love Kiera briefly and lose her than rob her of everything that made her, well, her. She hoped her girlfriend felt the same.

The ground shook and Leda briefly lost her balance, the hefty weight of the trident throwing her off center. But she managed to steady herself. She grimaced, seeing that their means of escape had been drastically reduced. They could try to blast their way out, but the cave could collapse further and kill them all. The telekhines started barking, and if the theft of the trident hadn't been noticed before, it definitely was now. Sera was in. She didn't have any hesitation. Leda though couldn't help but feel... fear. Fear in a way she never did facing down common monsters. Her palms felt sweaty, even under water. "Alright. Kiera, take this - it should probably respond better to you," Leda said, handing her girlfriend the trident. It made sense. Poseidon's daughter would be more attuned to it.

"I'll start with the grunts, you two stay hidden till he comes out," Leda asked.

Leda then took off at a charge without waiting for confirmation from the sisters. Her sword glowed red as she swung it through the ranks of the demons, cutting off the sounds of their horrific barking and covering the cave floor in monster confetti. There were about two dozen or so of the beasts, and Leda moved so fast that the stroke of her sword was faster than the beating of her heart. She would have finished them all, had it not been for a sudden surge of pain, sending the speedster crashing to a halt. Blood collected around a horrific wound in her lower back, the teeth of a telekhine having sunk into her. Leda screamed out in pain, as the demon released her, her blood coating its teeth.

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Janelle wasn't entirely sure what all was seemingly going on in general with those around her, she just sort of nodded her head when Kristin said she wasn't going to leave her alone with that group again, which she hopefully would not ever have to be a thing that happened again. Currently she wasn't entirely sure what was going on or what the others were doing, but based on what Kristin was saying, it sounded like Alexios was... Cleaning or something? She was wondering why he was doing that or something like that.

"You prahbably could 'ave been a lettle nicer, 'e's prahbably naht used to doin dat sahrt o' din," she said somewhat quietly towards her with regards to the whole Alexios thing. Janelle sort of just ignored the fact that she ended up saying anything towards Zeke. Personally she was just wanting to still not be anywhere near them at all, but that wasn't exactly realistic so she was fine with them potentially lagging behind them and not being there super quickly.

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Well he wasn't entirely sure what to expect, but everyone at the moment seemed to be in agreement and want to kill the things, though they probably would never catch the others that had gotten out of the room. Though unfortunately things went downhill as the others started getting out of the crate and attacking them. He was kind of glad that the one spitting acid at him initially had missed, but that didn't help with the fact that another one had decided to wrap around his legs to try and knock him over.

Jason started wiggling a bit and grabbed at the basilisk, managing to unwrapping it from around his legs and tossed it away from him. He then grabbed his sword and slashed at the monster, managing to kill the monster, before his attention turned towards the remaining monsters that had yet to exit the the crate, and he proceeded to go over and kill them before they managed to be any part of an issue or something like that. "Well dis 'as been an eventful 'ahtel stay," he said to the other two.

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She was glad that they managed to get some sleep with regards to what all was going on at the moment. They were getting closer to their goal, and so that was something to think about. Her attention shifted towards Madalyne when she asked about how they slept or something, "Alright, better considering how tired running from the monsters was getting, at least we didn't run into any other sort of issues when we did managed to sleep, so yay for that."

Her attention shifted as Damon started explaining where it was that they would have to potentially go through in order to get inside of the area. The small entrance was on the map, but she was a bit curious as to why he never had seemingly gone inside of the area before aside from the just scouting the entrance out. Then she wasn't super surprised, since it probably would appear to be super dangerous because of it and all. "It'll probably be guarded still from the sounds of it."

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Harrisburg, Hotel near, Amtrak Train Station:

The burns that the group had gotten were hurting like hell for them all, luckily before they left they were supplied with some nectar and amrbrosia to tend to their wounds. However during the fight it must have been due to the burns but the mist to hide the damaged door from the night before had faded away the three of them would suddenly hear a voice. "What the hell happened here?!" It came from a middle aged woman who was actual housekeeping this time and not a monster. She came into the room staring at the three of them seeing that the bathroom door was opened and seeing the wounds on them and quickly went for a first aide kit nearby. "How did this happen and are you three okay?" She asked the three of them

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Kiera watched as her girlfriend started to zip around the room taking out the telekines that were in the room rather quickly, she was still mesmerized as she watched the rainbow going around the room as the monsters burst into dust. Though she was quickly angered when the last telekine took a bite out of Leda and quickly rushed over towards her girlfriend swinging the trident in her hand as the sea demon was instantly killed by it. Kiera quickly went over and rested her hands on Leda's back using the water around them to heal her girlfriend's wounds. "Are you okay there love?" Kiera asked her.

Then the ground started to shake violently once more as someone massive started to come into the room, Kiera's attention turned towards the hallway when Oceanus himself came into the room along with ten cyclops as well. He turned towards the three intruders and glared at them all angerly. "You dare to enter my sanctum?!" He yelled loudly as the water currents around the three of them moved violently, sending the three of them flying Leda slammed into a wall. Both Kiera and Seraphina would be knocked backwards as well to slamming into a pillar that was in the middle of the room cracking it slightly.

Kiera groaned slightly as she started to slowly get back up helping her half-sister up, and quickly went to her girlfriend as well to, the ten cyclops were getting ready to charge at them. "You and Sera take care of the cyclops and i'll take on Oceanus." She told her hoping that Leda would listen to her.

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Madalyne looked down at the map and studied it for a moment she wasn't sure if there was anyone guarding that entrance or not but it was better than going through the front door. "Alright then once we finish eating and what not we can head on out there, hopefully not run into anyone or anything else on our way there." Madalyne said as she looked at Mary as she answered her question and smiled towards her. "Glad that you managed to sleep well then." Madalyne said as she started to finish eating her food that Damon had provided for them and stood up.

"I'll wait outside whenever you two are ready." Madalyne said as she gave Andy another little squeeze as she slowly started to stand up, and grabbed her pack of supplies and headed outside standing just outside of the cave it looked like she wanted to have a moment to herself or something like that. Damon looked at them, as he started to eat a little bit more as he looked at the two girls next to him. "Is everything okay with her?" Damon asked, he wasn't really sure on all the details when it came to their quest either.

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Kristin waited for Janelle to come with her, she didn't want to leave Janelle behind really either whenever she did catch up to her Kristin continued to make her way out of the burger king and towards the train station once again. Alexios continued to stare at the door, he didn't want to leave the two of them behind really either. It seemed that Kristin and Janelle were now leaving as he started to get up and made his way towards the men's restroom and leaned himself up against the door.

Nancy's vision would suddenly go dark again as she would get another vision, she would find the group Janelle, Kristin, Cassian, Demetri, Zeke, Alexios and herself inside the Lotus Hotel. They were in a room together hands tied together, there was a group of monsters there along with the Doors of Death within the room the group also appeared to be pretty beaten and battered as well to. There was a hooded figure in the room who looked like was the leader of the little group of monsters that were holding them.

"Throw them inside." The hooded person said, as the monsters nodded grabbing each of them one by one, and started to throw them all through the doors. Once they were on the other side of the door Nancy would find herself in the pit itself, and then the doors of death shutting behind them. Nearby would be a figure that looked somewhat like a wolf or possibly a dog would be seen nearby and then the vision would suddenly end.

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Location: New York City

Skills: Hydrokinsis

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Sera flinched a bit when watching Leda get chomped into by the Telekine. Man that had to have hurt....At least her wound was healed up quickly. Probably would have been way worse if they were on land with no water in sight. Maybe having a little canister or something of water to carry around would be smart when traveling on the land. If she ever went on another quest. The demigod would put that thought aside for now due to Oceanus entering the room with cyclops'. "Ahhh!" She screamed while slamming into the pillar. Groaning afterwards. "Ugh.... ow.... Fuccckkk." That was gonna hurt for a little bit.

"Pl-please be careful sister. We'll come help as soon as these guys get turned to dust!" The girl got her shield out along with the sword she'd taken earlier. She hoped to not be clumsy right now during this important fight. Sera used the ocean around her to trip one of the monsters in front of her. Slashing her sword downwards as fast as she could. It exploded into dust, swirling through the water current. The girl made quick work of five others, each having to stumble around before meeting their demise. She made the last of the five fall before stabbing it in the chest and slashing its head off. The young demigod was proud to have killed six of the ten Cyclops'.