Chapter 19

[Third Person's PoV]

Lucian willed Larry to go to an alleyway and put him down. He summoned his bag from his shadow and started rummaging through it once again.

"I should really organize this. I just picked everything I would find useful and shoved it inside. Books… no I don't need that at the moment, Underwear… ew, next, more books, is this paprika I forgot I packed that but not what I was looking for, hmmm ah here it is"

Lucian said as he took out the enchanted glasses his mother gifted him and put them on. "Okay here we go now where was I"

Lucian grabbed the map and started reading it, "Okay so I'm here in North California and the spider woman said Virginia which is here the next state over… wait, let's think this logically"

'This is the Percy Jackson Universe, I knew that for a fact when Hecate mentioned the pact between the big 3 and mother explained the mist that separated the two realities, which was why I made the bet with Hecate in the first place.

Now looking at Richmond in Virginia and Arachne talking about the spawn of Athena in Virginia, it's definitely talking about Annabeth Chase, cool I guess.

But the thing about it is that she doesn't get attacked by the spiders for 3 nights until after Thanksgiving and meeting Magnus Chase, her cousin who is also a demi-god of the Norse Pantheon.

So the whole thing about Arachne doesn't happen until a couple of months for now and it's freaking July. The thing with Arachne couldn't have happened now or in the past, it must have been the future… So there's no point of me rushing over there, cool.

That just means I can absolutely take my time and train my abilities with monsters and the likes, I especially need to practice my abilities controlling the mist' Lucian pondered looking at everything on the map.

"ROOOOAAAAAR"

Lucian snapped his neck towards the direction of the roar and saw an automaton, a lion automaton to be more specific. Most of them were machines brought to life by Hephaestus, which later on went haywire and started attacking mostly anything in sight due to damage to their circuitry.

Lucian, seeing this smirked, "This is gonna be fun" He pulled everything back into his shadow including his glasses and turned his skull ring into a bo staff.

Lucian started twisting and twirling the bo staff in his hands before putting it by his armpits and getting into a fighting stance.

He taunted the metal lion with with hand, "Come here little kitty cat"

Which caused the lion to make another roar and rush towards him. Seeing it running towards him Lucian also ran towards it.

Lucian swung his bo staff hitting it right on the side of its face making it turn its head. It just turned its head right back and slashed its metallic claws which Lucian tried to block by putting the staff in front of him.

Lucian was brought to his knees with a grunt making him realize the physical difference between them. He rolled to the side when he realized he couldn't keep it up much longer causing the lion to slash its claws against the pavement leaving a large claw mark imprinted on it.

Lucian positioned his staff upwards on the ground, he made the earth surround the bottom of it holding in place and in that same action used the staff to vault himself towards the lion kickin it on its metal face with both his feet pushing it back slightly.

The Lion roared once more and opened its mouth, from its mouth it started releasing fire like a flamethrower.

Lucian took the staff off the ground once he landed and started spinning it in front of himself, turning it into a fan, stopping the flames from approaching him.

Sweat started dripping down from his face due to the intensity of the heat. When the lion closed its mouth and the flames stopped coming out Lucian dropped his staff.

"OWWWW" He screamed while shaking and blowing on his hands, the lion seeing this as the perfect opportunity jumped with a roar ready to sink its teeth into him.

Lucian gritty his teeth and picked up the staff, he lodged the staff right in its mouth leaving it wide open unable to close it.

Lucian touched the ground and made it surrounded and grabbed onto the lion's legs and paws, making it unable to escape.

The lion tried to burn the pole with its mouth flamethrower but was unable. Lucian willed his shadow to turn into a tentacle and shot it towards the Lion's opened mouth and penetrate the core of its being.

Lucian, using his shadow tentacle, took a hold of the staff and brought it to his shadow before he proceeded to infuse his legs with his shadow power and leap into the air, jumping to the roof of a building while doing a roll to land safely leaving behind a black wispy trail.

*BOOOM*

Lucian heard the automaton below him explode due to its core being destroyed making him smirk, "Lucian 1, Automaton 0. Now I better leave, setting off an explosion near a gas station is likely to attract unwanted attention.

Now all I have to do is learn how the hell I freaking jumped and landed on top of here cause that was freaking awesome… and I can't get down without any help. But before anything else"

Lucian sighed and summoned Larry and made him carry him down again where the lion exploded.

"Arise!" He said with a smirk waiting for the Lion to answer his call… but nothing appeared.

The smirk on his face faltered, "I said Arise!" Lucian demanded in a louder voice. But just like previously nothing happened.

Lucian stood there looking at the busted metal and scorch ground for a few seconds, 'Are you kidding me! I can't make automatons into my shadow soldiers!?!?! What type of bullshit is this, is it cause it's not organic or some shit'

Lucian grew irritated and made Larry jump into the top buildings again before making him jump buildings, to try and get away until there were any more buildings to jump onto.

Lucian made Larry land on the ground and summoned his bag once again from his shadows once he realized no one was around.

'Tch, all though I can't make automatons my soldiers, I did learn some things so it wasn't that bad' Lucian thought while he opened his bag and started looking for something inside.

"Clothes, clothes, more clothes, ah here it here is" Lucian said as he pulled out a book, the first book his mother gave him alongside his glasses. He stored the bag away and started flipping through the book in his hands with a pen he stored in the middle of it.

Lucian flipped the book all the way towards a page that said shadow powers, "Okay" he said while tapping his pen on the page, "I forgot to update this, now I gotta add shadow storage with Shadow Leap or do I call it shadow jump and that I can't summoned automatons to do my bidding"

Lucian started pacing back and forth while walking in circles, "What more could I do with my shadow…" Lucian thought while continuously clicking his pen 'when I was with mom I was focusing on too many things to properly focus on different ways to use my shadow.

I had to focus on my weapon wielding, my magic lessons, potion lessons, mythology lessons, and the magic ones had multiple parts to it too. I could use this time to try out different things like how I could shape it and into what I could shape it into. How strong does it fare against monsters and how I could use it in battle'

Lucian while was pacing around he noticed that it was getting darker causing him to sigh, "What a hectic day it has been and It's only my first day out… but I'm liking this, I can feel myself getting better, it's a slow process but I can feel it and I'm getting excited for it. But for now it's time I find a hotel to stay at if I don't want to spend the night outside"

Lucian got on top of Larry once again and started down Jacksonville after a few minutes of walking Lucian saw a sign that said Pumpkin Center and just continued walking downwards.

(A/N: Real places by the way. I had to us Google maps for this shit, so respect the dedication I'm putting into this 😤)

It was soon the middle of the night, just as Lucian was about to give up and just sleep outside Lucian saw an inn, which upon closer inspection was a 2 star inn that read Rodeway Inn & Suites Jacksonville near Camp Lejeune

"Freaking finally" Lucian sighed, he willed Larry to enter as he entered he decided to really start practicing using the mist.

He remembered one of the lessons his mother use to teach him "When using the mist against mortals and regular people remember make them see and hear want they want to see and hear"

Lucian closed his eyes and started concentrating on the mist surrounding them. 'What they want to see and hear' Lucian repeated in his head.

'They want to see a family renting a room' Lucian started expressing his intent towards the mist and it soon followed his will.

The innkeeper at the front desk looked up from his desk and saw a regular buff man with a little boy on his shoulder looking stern.

"What can I do for you today sir."

And the man then started speaking in a gruff voice matching his appearance, "My son and I are looking for a room to rent to spend the night"

"Just for 1 night sir?" The innkeeper asked with a smile.

The man with the little boy on his shoulder nodded his head. The innkeeper nodded his head as well and told him the price which made the man reach into his pocket and pull the amount he needed.

The innkeeper then turned around and grabbed a key from the wall and handed it to the man. "Your key sir, room 302. I hope you enjoy your stay" he said with a smile.

The man nodded his head and started walking to the stairs.

As Lucian willed Larry to walk up the stairs he let out a sigh of relief 'oh my God that worked! I'm so freaking thankful'

And with that Lucian arrived at his room and willed Larry to return to his shadow and jumped into bed. Lucian fell asleep as quickly as he laid his head on the pillow due to being tired of his constant fighting…