Perseus Jackson: Titan of The Hunt

CH14: The Calm Before The Storm

Percy)

I walked down the streets of Olympus with Nemea at my side, getting a significant portion of the residents to give looks of fear and awe at the fearsome golden monster beside me. It was good though because it meant no one wanted to focus on me, for once. However, it had its downsides when I realised a major problem as we finally reached the elevator back to the Empire State Building. How was I to fit a three-ton lioness inside? I was pretty sure she exceeded the weight capacity, let alone the size limitations of the lift. Unfortunately I was sure there was not a cargo elevator, which meant I needed to ask a god or make her smaller.

As much as I wanted to ask Hermes to bring her down for me, I also wanted to get out without drawing the attention of the fact I just beat up his half-brother. No matter how much a large portion of people didn't like him. Instead, I focused my attention on the golden lioness and reached for what I imagined the threads of time were in my head and slowly rolled them backwards. Whereas before I was always accompanied by a flash of light and her new form would be revealed. Now, I could see through the light and watch her form shrink down until she was roughly the size of an actual lioness. Satisfied with the result I stepped into the elevator followed by Nemea and we rode it down on our own to the mortal world below.

Stepping out of the elevator, we crossed the lobby and I saw the security guard pale at the sight. Most mortals must have saw something completely normal like a guide dog or something but he alone obviously could see through the mist as he leapt completely over his chair and hid behind his desk. The book in his hands thrown into the sky where it landed by me, it had a black and grey cover and the title was something like '50 shades of something' I simply smirked and walked out as people began to look at him like a madman, I never liked him anyway.

Now, I could have gone to my mum and Paul's apartment first after all it was only a few blocks away but I was planning on coming back this way, before I would travel west towards San Francisco. Therefore, I had to go to camp first, before coming back to the city. Hopefully with a method of transport to get there on, as much as me and Zeus now supposedly mutually tolerated each other. I still didn't feel like riding an Airplane again anytime soon and I didn't know if I could do that flash-teleport thing as a Titan. Likewise, I had no idea if I could do the sword slash thing that Luke did years ago with Maelstrom.

Instead, as I walked down the sidewalk, I looked for a free bit of Pavement before casting a drachma into the street, the coin disappearing into the asphalt and summoning the Gray Sisters' chariot/taxi. For the next minute I patiently watched as the surrounding tarmac began to melt before the gaseous smoky taxi emerged from the ground itself. Its appearance startling Nemea who hissed at it, I simply rubbed her head reassuringly to calm her.

An old crone poked her head out of the passenger window and looked at the pair of us. I saw that she had the tooth and the eye which must have felt like Christmas to the aged sister.

"Two to Camp Half-Blood and yes, I am aware it is outside the service area before you say it, and if you have problem that this is a monster and you don't let her aboard. I will let her eat the damned taxi." I merely stated remembering my last journey where we struggled to get them to let Tyson on.

The old woman paled even further before simply nodding deciding to keep quiet and the rear door opened Nemea leapt in and instantly laid down on two of the seats, forcing me to be crushed against the passenger side door by her backside. As a result, I briefly began to reconsider shrinking her further but knowing the journey was not long I decided to bear with it and stuck my shield in the footwell on her side.

The old message from Ganymede sounded before the taxi suddenly launched forward throwing me against the chair. Seriously what use is a chain for a seat belt when you break your spine every time you accelerate in the damn thing? I think I just got injured more by the taxi than I did by Gaia, and I had actually paid for this.