𝒗. 𝐈𝐌𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘

𝒊.

The end of the world started when a pegasus landed on the hood of Percy's car.

Up until then, he was having a great afternoon. His mom and his stepdad, Paul, took him to this private stretch of beach on the South Shore, and Paul let him borrow his Prius for a short spin.

Now, you're probably thinking, Wow, that was really irresponsible of him, blah, blah, blah, but Paul knows Percy pretty well. He's seen the boy slice up demons and leap out of exploding school buildings, so he probably figured taking a car a few hundred yards wasn't exactly the most dangerous thing Percy had ever done.

He parked on a ridge overlooking the Atlantic. The sea is always one of his favorite places, buttoday it was especially nice—glittery green and smooth as glass, as though his dad was keeping it calmjust for him.

"Nice view," a voice said from the passenger seat. It sounded warbled and far away, but Percy smiled at the familiarity of it.

He looked over to see a shimmering image of his girlfriend, Noelle Grove. She appeared as a hologram due to a magic ring Annabeth had made with the help of a few Hephaestus campers and her laptop from Daedalus.

Percy recognized that she looked more tan than the last time they saw each other and her freckles more prominent. Her eyebrows looked fuller and her hair longer. He thought she looked like a goddess, and he's seen a few of them himself.

"How's Rhode Island?" he asked.

Noelle turned away from the ocean to look at him. She smiled softly. "It's good, but I'll be heading back to camp tomorrow."

Percy didn't have to ask why, it was rather obvious. Something big was supposed to go down any day now. He was "on call" for a mission — one Noelle didn't know about. Even worse, next week was his birthday. There was this prophecy that said when he turned eighteen, bad things would happen.

"Are you okay?" Noelle asked, her brow furrowing slightly due to concern.

Percy was about to give a half-assed excuse when a huge black form swooped down from the sky, landing on the hood of the Prius with a WUMP-WUMP CRUNCH!

Hey, boss, a voice said in Percy's head. Nice car!

Blackjack the pegasus was an old friend of his, so he tried not to get too annoyed by the craters he'd just put in the hood; but Percy didn't think his stepdad would be real stoked.

"Blackjack," Percy sighed. "What are you—"

Then he saw who was riding on his back, and he knew his day was about to get a lot more complicated.

"'Sup, Percy."

Charles Beckendorf, senior counselor for the Hephaestus cabin, would make most monsters cry for their mommies. He was huge, with ripped muscles from working on the forges every summer, two years older than Percy and Noelle, and one of the camp's best armor smiths. He made some seriously ingenious mechanical stuff. A month before, he'd rigged a Greek firebomb in the bathroom of a tour bus that was carrying a bunch of monsters across country. The explosion took out a whole legion of Kronos's evil meanies as soon as the first harpy went flush.

Beckendorf was dressed for combat. He wore a bronze breastplate and war helm with black camo pants and a sword strapped to his side. His explosives bag was slung over his shoulder.

"Time?" Percy asked, forgetting about Noelle's holographic form in the passenger seat.

He nodded grimly.

A clump formed in Percy's throat. He'd known this was coming. They'd been planning for it for weeks, but he'd half hoped it would never happen.

Noelle looked up at Beckendorf. "Hey, Beckendorf."