Chapter 26

[Third Person's PoV]

Seeing them shake hands and make amends, Luke sighed seeing that which caused him to wince and hold his rib in pain.

Lucian seeing this willed his shadow and summoned his backpack, which took both Luke and Thalia by surprise.

He searched through his bag and found two potions before throwing them at both of them. "For you guys"

They both caught it and looked at it with confusion, to which Annabeth took among herself to explain.

"It's a healing potion, which Lucian made by himself" Annabeth said proudly as if it was her own, "It works wonders and I saw the way he makes them, it's pretty good too"

Luke and Thalia looked at each before shrugging their shoulders and uncapping the bottle, which they proceeded to carefully take a sip of before downing it completely.

They looked at Lucian weirdly after drinking it, "Is that kool-aid?"

To which Lucian nodded proudly at that, "Let me tell you, I would never make someone drink something I give them knowing it tastes disgusting" Lucian said as an inside joke to himself.

Luke and Thalia just looked at Lucian once again weirdly thinking that the little kid that just beat them up fed them kool-aid thinking it was a healing potion.

They didn't know what to say, when suddenly they felt their wounds start to heal. But as it heals they start to feel a slight sensation of being tired.

"It's a side effect since it's using your own energy to fasten your healing process." Lucian explained making them look at him in wonder.

'Just how many more secrets is he hiding?' they both thought at the same time.

"Where do we go from here?" Annabeth asked, looking at everyone.

"Well where we always go, North and see where the wind takes us" Lucian said to which Annabeth just kicked him on the shin making Lucian start hopping on one leg.

"Ouch what was that for?" Lucian asked, holding his shin.

"For being stupid. What do mean where the wind takes us, the winds are currently against you, so if they'll take you anywhere is death."

"It was such a figure of speech, you didn't have to hit me." Lucian said, flicking her head.

"Ouch" Annabeth said while holding her forehead, which she followed up by punching Lucian in the arm. Which prompted him to step on her foot.

Annabeth growled at Lucian ready to try and bite him but Luke just shook his head, "he's right, It'll most logical choice is to go north"

"Why?" Annabeth asked, looking between Luke and Thalia.

"I know someone that could help us get there." Luke said with a reluctant sigh.

'He must be pretty worried about Thalia if we're already making way towards his mom's house' Lucian thought to himself.

But before they could get a move on they heard a loud shrieking sound coming from above.

They all looked up and saw a herd of Griffin coming towards their direction causing Lucian to sigh, "Great we haven't even left and were already being attacked that can't be good."

Lucian turned his ring into a chain scythe and started spinning it preparing for a fight. Thalia takes out her shield and spear, while Luke and Annabeth take their daggers.

The first Griffin stretched out its long talons and aimed them straight down towards Lucian.

Lucian didn't flinch and sent his spinning blade forward, the griffin tried to dodge but Lucian pulled the chain to the side causing the blade to turn and hit the griffin right on the stomach causing it to fall right out of the sky.

The griffins all started swooping down trying to kill the group of demi-gods, as one gained towards Annabeth with its beak ready to attack her, she blocked it with the side of her dagger before lodging the other right on its eyes hitting their brain.

Thalia blocked her griffin opponent with her shield intimidating it, she charged her spear with electricity before stabbing it right through its checks killing it and turning it into dust.

While Luke used his superior speed to dodge the beak and slash his dagger underneath the griffin's throat.

"Arise" Lucian said, making the 4 Griffin they killed turn into shadow soldiers and rise alongside his own army in his shadow.

Lucian had a total of 227 shadow soldiers including the 4 griffins, minus the 156 spiders he killed due to not trying to trigger Annabeth's phobia making it a total of 71.

The 5 Laistrygonians each jumped, grabbing a griffin from the sky, causing them start wrestling each other. The griffin would to rip them apart with beaks and claws, but they reconstructed themselves and held to their feather neck before joining their arms and squeezed their neck, causing the griffins to start screeching and thrashing loudly.

After a while the sound of their necks popping was heard as they quickly turned to dust. "Arise!" Lucian shouted once again, gaining another 5 griffins.

Thalia and Luke looked at Lucian in shock that he had to scream at them, "Don't pay attention to me, pay attention to what's in front of you!"

They quickly snapped out of it and saw ten Empousai in front of them, 5 in for the two of them.

They were using their ability to manipulate the mist, they turned the mist into ropes and it wrapped around griffins from every direction holding it in place.

Luke had easy access to its head, killing it in one shot while Thalia just impaled it with her spear.

Annabeth, already used to Lucian's abilities, shot her dagger forward hitting the griffin on its torso but not killing it. Only making it screech in anger and pain

The griffin swung its lion paw that had its claws extended towards Annabeth, she rolled to the side and shot her other dagger towards its head impaling the side of its head, killing it in 2 shots.

"Arise" Lucian said once again gaining another 3 griffins making it a total of 12 griffins.

They all let out a sigh of relief when it was over as Lucian called his shadows back to where they belong.

"Well let's get moving, we can't wait here all day and just get attacked again." Lucian said as he turned around and walked forward.

"Wait, you're not going to explain what just happened?" Thalia asked.

"And are we not going to use the griffins as a mode of transport?" Annabeth asked.

Lucian groaned, "I'll explain on the way and I can't use them since that means we'll be flying through the sky which is Zeus' domain. It wouldn't be a good to fly in his territory"

The sky started rumbling in discontent when Lucian mentioned Zeus' name, probably mad at the fact that he ruined one of his plans.

Thalia silently let out a sigh of relief and made sure now one was looking which they weren't.

Annabeth nodded her head at the explain, "That makes sense, but why don't use the giants"

"That my little friend is because I didn't think about it" Lucian said as a matter of fact.

Annabeth just rolled her eyes and waited for Lucian to summon them so they could continue their journey…