Chapter 194: Bianca strange past/ a hostile god
Riding a giant pig wasn't something that you could experience every day.
They road the boar until sunset, which was about much as most of them could take. Imagine riding a giant steel brush over a bed of gravel all day. That's about how comfortable boar-riding was.
Drako have no idea how many miles they've covered, but the mountains faded into the distance and were replaced by miles of flat, dry land. The grass and scrub brush got sparser until they were galloping (do boars gallop?) across the desert.
As night fell, the boar came to a stop at a creek bed and snorted. He started drinking the muddy water, then ripped a saguaro cactus out of the ground and chewed it, needles and all.
"This is as far as he'll go," Grover said. "We need to get off while he's eating."
Nobody needed convincing. They slipped off the boar's back while he was busy ripping up cacti. Then they waddled away as best they could with their saddle sores.
After its third saguaro and another drink of muddy water, the boar squealed and belched, then whirled around and galloped back toward the east.
"It likes the mountains better," Drako guessed.
"I can't blame it," Thalia said. "Look."
Ahead of them was a two-lane road half covered with sand. On the other side of the road was a cluster of buildings too small to be a town: a boarded-up house, a taco shop that looked like it hadn't been open since before Zoë Nightshade was born, and a white stucco post office with a sign that said GILA CLAW, ARIZONA hanging crooked above the door.
Beyond that was a range of hills… but then Drako noticed they weren't regular hills. The countryside was way too flat for that. The hills were enormous mounds of old cars, appliances, and other scrap metal. It was a junkyard that seemed to go on forever.
"Whoa," Percy said.
"Something tells me we're not going to find a car rental here," Thalia said. She looked at Grover. "I don't suppose you got another wild boar up your sleeve?"
Grover was sniffing the wind, looking nervous. He fished out his acorns and threw them into the sand, then played his pipes. They rearranged themselves in a pattern that made no sense to everyone, but Grover looked concerned.
"That's us," he said. "Those six nuts right there."
"Which one is me?" Drako asked.
"The little deformed one," Zoë suggested.
"No, I think that that's is Percy's."
"Oh, shut up."
"That cluster right there," Grover said, pointing to the left, "that's trouble."
"A monster?" Thalia asked.
Grover looked uneasy. "I don't smell anything, which doesn't make sense. But the acorns don't lie. Our next challenge…"
He pointed straight toward the junkyard. With the sunlight almost gone now, the hills of metal looked like something on an alien planet.
They finally decided to camp for the night and try the junkyard in the morning. None of them wanted to go Dumpster-diving in the dark.
Zoë, Bianca and Thalia produced six sleeping bags and foam mattresses out of their backpacks.
The night got chilly fast, so Grover and Percy collected old boards from the ruined house, and Thalia zapped them with an electric shock to start a campfire. Pretty soon, they were about as comfy as you can get in a rundown ghost town in the middle of nowhere.
"The stars are out," Zoe said.
She was right. There were millions of them, with no city lights to turn the sky orange.
"Amazing," Bianca said. "I've never actually seen the Milky Way."
"This is nothing," Zoe said. "In the old days, there were more. Whole constellations have disappeared because of human light pollution."
"You talk like you're not a human," Percy said.
Zoe raised an eyebrow. "I am a Hunter. I care what happens to the wild places of the world. Can the same be said for thee?"
"For you," Thalia corrected. "Not thee"
"But you use you for the beginning of a sentence."
"And for the end," Thalia said. "No thou. No thee. Just you"
Zoe threw up her hands in exasperation. "I hate this language. It changes too often!"
Grover sighed. He was still looking up at the stars like he was thinking about the light pollution problem. "If only Pan were here, he would ser things right."
Zoe nodded sadly.
"Maybe it was the coffee," Grover said. "I was drinking coffee, and the wind came. Maybe if I drank more coffee…"
Drako was pretty sure coffee had nothing to do with what had happened in Cloudcroft, but he didn't have the heart to tell Grover.
"Grover, do you really think that was Pan? I mean, I know you want it to be."
"He sent us help," Grover insisted. "I don't know how or why. But it was his presence. After this quest is done, I'm going back to New Mexico and drinking a lot of Coffee. It's the best lead we've gotten in two thousand years. I was so close."
"What I want to know," Thalia said, looking at Bianca, "is how you destroyed one of the zombies. There are a lot more out there somewhere. We need to figure out how to fight them."
Bianca shook her head. "I don't know. I just stabbed it and it went up in flames."
"Maybe there's something special about your knife," Drako said.
"It is the same as mine," Zoë said. "Celestial bronze, yes. But mine did not affect the warriors that way."
"Maybe you have to hit the skeleton in a certain spot," Percy said.
Bianca looked uncomfortable with everybody paying attention to her.
"Never mind," Zoe told her. "We will find the answer. In the meantime, we should plan our next move. When we get through this junkyard, we must continue west. If we can find a road, we can hitchhike to the nearest city. I think that would be Las Vegas."
"No!" Bianca said. "Not there!"
She looked really freaked out, like she'd just been dropped off the steep end of a roller coaster.
Zoe frowned. "Why?"
Bianca took a shaky breath. "I… I think we stayed there for a while. Nico and I. When we were traveling. And then, I can't remember…"
Drako noted that Percy had a strange face. Grover and Percy exchange looks, like they were thinking the same thing.
"Bianca," Percy said. "That hotel you stayed at. Was it possibly called the Lotus Hotel and Casino?"
Her eyes widened. "How could you know that?"
"Oh, great," Percy said.
"Wait," Thalia said. "What is the Lotus Casino?"
That was what Drako wanted to ask.
"A couple of years ago," Percy said, "Grover, Annabeth, and I got trapped there. It's designed so you never want to leave. We stayed for about an hour. When we came out, five days had passed. It makes time speed up."
"No," Bianca said. "No, that's not possible."
"You said somebody came and got you out," Percy remembered.
"Yes."
"What did he look like? What did he say?"
"I… I don't remember. Please, I really don't want to talk about this."
"You can't avoid this talk even if you don't want to talk about it, Bianca," Drako said. "If you are brave enough to join the Hunters, you are brave enough to confront this."
Zoe sat forward; her eyebrows knit with concern. "You said that Washington D.C., had changed when you went back last summer. You didn't remember the subway behind there."
"Yes, but—"
"Bianca," Zoe said, "can you tell me the name of the president of the United States right now?"
"Don't be silly," Bianca said. She told them the correct name of the president.
"And who was the president before that?" Zoe asked.
Bianca thought for a while. "Roosevelt."
Zoe swallowed. "Theodore or Franklin?"
"Franklin," Bianca said. "F.D.R."
"Bianca," Zoe said. "F.D.R. was not the last president. That was about seventy years ago."
"That's impossible," Bianca said. "I… I'm not that old."
She stared at her hands as if to make sure they weren't wrinkled.
Thalia's eyes turned sad. She knew what it was like to get pulled out of time for a while. "It's okay, Bianca, the important thing is you and Nico are safe. You made it out."
"But how?" Percy asked. "We were only there for an hour and we barely escaped. How could you have escaped after being there for so long?"
"I told you." Bianca looked about ready to cry. "A man came and said it was time to leave. And—"
"But who? Why did he do it?"
Before she could answer, they were hit with a blazing light from down the road. The head-lights of a car appeared out of nowhere. They grabbed their sleeping bags and got out of the way as a deathly white limousine slid to a stop in front of them.
Drako knew this was going to be difficult. Inside the car, he could sense the presence of two gods. And, unfortunately, it wasn't Apollo.
The back of the limo opened next to Percy. Before he could step away, the point of a sword tried to go for his neck.
Clank!
The sound of metal hitting metal was heard in the dark night.
"Back off, Percy," Drako said. "You don't want to fight a god, do you?"
Percy paled.
Drako heard the sound of Zoe and Bianca drawing their bows.
The owner of the sword got out of the car.
He smiled cruelly. "Not so fast now, are you, punk?"
He was a big man with a crew cut, a black leather biker's jacket, black jeans, a white muscle shirt, and combat boots. Wraparound shades hid his eyes.
Without a doubt, Drako used [Inspect Status]
[Level of normal skill [Inspect Status] was increased from 4 to 5]
[Normal skill [Inspect Status] has reached MAX level]
[AGI bonus]
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‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
[Ares]
Race: Divine Spirit
Strength: 9500
Defense: 6500
Magic: 2750
Agility: 4500
Abilities
-Prowess in Battle
-Battle Precognition
-Tracking skills
-Powerful Roar
-Warfare Expertise
-War Manipulation
-Telumkinesis
+Weapon Conjuration
+Weapon Transformation
+Weapon Curses
+Disarmament
+Weapon Omniscience
-Odikinesis
+Battle Jitters
-Pyrokinesis (limited)
-Necromancy (limited)
-Reality-Warping
-Transmutation
-Control of Animals
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
"Ares," Percy growled.
The war god glanced at all of them. "At ease, people."
He snapped his fingers, and their weapons fell to the ground. Laevatein included, much to Drako's shock.
Instantly, Drako recalled his sword.
Ares looked surprised. He then looked at the sword again, and he seemed to froze.
"That's sword there… where did you get it?" the god asked.
"I get from somewhere," Drako said.
"Give it to me, and I won't kill you."
"Are you sure?" Drako asked. "I'm pretty confident on my abilities and the power of this sword. You know it, right? The properties of this sword."
Anti-life and Anti-divine.
Ares would be heavily wounded if Drako manage to strike him with the sword. There is a great percent that he would be dead if Drako use the special attack of this sword.
Ares doubted, but he finally let a sigh.
"This is a friendly meeting." He then turned at Percy. "Of course, I'd like to take your head for a trophy, but someone wants to see you. And I never behead my enemies in front of a lady."
"What lady?" Thalia asked.
Ares looked over at her. "Well, well. I heard you were back."
"Thalia, daughter of Zeus," Ares mused. "You're not hanging out with very good company."
"What's your business, Ares?" she said. "Who's in the car?"
Ares smiled, enjoying the attention. "Oh, I doubt she want to meet the rest of you. Particularly not them." He jutted his chin toward Zoe and Bianca. "Oh, right, you're one of them now. Why don't you all go get some tacos while you wait? Only take Percy a few minutes."
"We will not leave him alone with thee, Lord Ares," Zoe said.
"Besides," Grover managed, "the taco place is closed."
Ares snapped his fingers again. The lights inside the taqueria suddenly blazed to life. The boards flew off the door and the CLOSED sign flipped to OPEN. "You were saying, goat boy?"
"Ares, I want the other boy too," A feminine voice came out of the limo. "I want to see the one who made little Artemis break her own oath."
"You heard the lady," Ares said, looking at Drako. "Are you going to reject a lady's proposition?"
Drako looked at the rest of the team, and he finally nodded.
"Ok, I don't want Percy to be killed yet," Drako said.
The rest of the group reluctantly headed over to the taco restaurant. Ares regarded the two of them with loathing, then opened the limousine door like a chauffeur.
"Get inside, punks," he said. "And mind your manners. She's not as forgiving of rudeness as I am."
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Hi guys!
I wanted to take a break, so I did that :).
Anyways, I have already started university and its a pretty difficult degree, so I'm going to reduce the number of chapters posted during a week to 1 or 2 (depending on my mood).
Good Luck to all of you who are studying too!
Weekly Power Status
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Ranking 
-- Power
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