Chapter 73

[Third Person's PoV]

Lucian and the others were seen sitting down in the middle of a forest, with a small fire in front of them for Lucian as he was shivering due to the loss of blood. He was still as pale as a ghost, with just a few of his colors returning.

"We have to be careful. Apart from the fact that we don't know if the Hesperides sisters are chasing us, we have to be careful of what other deities are out there as well," Annabeth warned with a serious expression.

Which was something they all agreed with. They would have continued running with Ashura, but he's too big, standing at 4 meters tall, and could easily stand out.

As they tried to think of different ways to get back to camp safely, they heard the sound of trees being hit and falling over with a loud sound.

Luke and Thalia immediately stood up and took out their weapons, while Annabeth stood in front of the pale and still bloody Lucian. She reached into her bag, pulling out her cards in one hand and her dagger in the other.

"Tsk, Tsk, Tsk. You 'heroes' need a better way of hiding. Ladon could still smell you from miles away," Aegle, one of the Hesperides, said with venom in her voice next to Ladon, who walked behind her with all 100 heads looking enraged, with her other sisters next to her.

"Return us the golden apples, and I will promise to only kill you guys quickly but very painfully," Hesperia said coldly.

Luke got into a fighting position while Thalia did the same.

"Well, aren't you kind? I appreciate the offer, but I'll have to decline," Luke said before disappearing from where he was standing and reappearing by one of the Hesperides, kicking her in the stomach, taking her by surprise.

His speed took them all by surprise, as one of their sisters was sent flying back.

"AEGLE!" They yelled with worry before ordering Ladon to attack him. Ladon, who was always guarding the golden apples with no rest, was very lonely and was glad to have the Hesperides as company during its solitude. So, seeing one of the beings he considered a friend get attacked, all 100 heads roared in outrage.

But before it had a chance to attack, lightning struck down where it stood, causing it to shift its attention towards Thalia, who surrounded herself in lightning.

"Hey, big guy! I'll be your opponent!" Thalia called out as the lightning around her body started to move and concentrate on her spear.

With a single thrust of her spear, she sent a beam of pure electricity which managed to pierce one of Ladon's heads, causing it to roar in agony.

Lucian and Annabeth weren't the only ones who had gotten stronger during the two years; Luke and Thalia weren't just slacking off.

While Thalia focused on her control of lightning, Luke honed his speed.

He maneuvered his way through the battlefield, attacking all four sisters at the same time. However, the sisters weren't defenseless; they were the daughters of Atlas, after all.

One of them ripped off a tree right where it stood and swung it towards Luke, who ducked under the swing as he rushed towards them.

He honestly didn't have anything against them, and since they were only attacking because they stole something from them, Luke didn't want to kill them. So, he did the next best thing and incapacitated them.

Meanwhile, Thalia, like a lightning bolt, zigzagged around Ladon, narrowly dodging all 100 heads that were attacking while also slashing her Spear at it.

"'I know I shouldn't be trying this in battle, but it's now or never,' Thalia thought as she backed away before surrounding herself in lightning once more. Instead of transferring that power somewhere else like her spear, she moved it and concentrated it towards her legs and arm, where they slowly started to change shape.

A sharp lightning gauntlet appeared on her arms with sharp claws for fingers, and pure lightning boots appeared around her legs. She had seen how Lucian used his flames and made a gauntlet out of them, so she wanted to do something similar with her lightning as she saw and thought about all the advantages it would bring. She disappeared from where she was standing and almost like she was teleporting, she started running around in circles around Ladon, looking for a place with the least amount of heads.

Once she found it along its rear, the floor cracked as Thalia thrust herself forward while pointing her spear forward and stabbed Ladon deeply. She used the spear as a guide and transferred all the electricity inside of Ladon, causing it to roar.

"ROOOOOAAAAAAAARRRRRRRR!"

'The fuck? Since when can she do all of that? That was so cool! It was like straight out of an anime,' Lucian thought as his eyes widened in excitement.

"Well then, it's time to end these charades," Lucian said, standing up slowly.

"What?" Annabeth looked back in confusion.

"Sit back down; you still haven't recovered," Annabeth said in a serious tone.

"Annabeth… did you forget who my mother was already? My mother is known for her potions. Do you think I, as her son, don't know how to make some or don't have some in stock? And did you forget that while traveling when we first met, I had healing potions and stuff like that?"

Lucian reached into his shadow and pulled out a blue potion, which he immediately chugged down. Color soon started returning to his face. "Yup, mine definitely tastes better than mom's."

"You could have done that all this time? What's going on?" Annabeth asked in confusion.

"You'll see in a bit…" Lucian walked in front of Annabeth and controlled his shadows to shoot tentacles to wrap around Luke and Thalia, pulling them to his side.

"What are you doing!?" Luke and Thalia asked with worry before stopping, noticing Lucian looked back to normal.

Once they were a safe distance away, Lucian looked towards the sisters and the dragon before gaining a pure sadistic expression that freaked them all out.

"Tell me, sisters and guarding dragons, if you're here… who's protecting the golden apples?" Lucian's sadistic expression grew as their faces grew horrified, as Lucian and his friends started disappearing into his shadow. All Lucian heard was a loud,

"NOOOOO!!"

After a few minutes, Lucian and the rest reappeared back in the empty garden while Lucian carried a straw basket, happily skipping toward the unprotected garden.

Seeing his friends frozen, Lucian looked at them with confusion, "What are you waiting for? Let's go; we don't have all day. Come on, Luke, you still have a quest to complete."

"Not before explaining what is going on? You go from dying to a perfectly healthy person in mere seconds; we want answers," Luke said in a serious tone, while Annabeth and Thalia nodded in agreement with equal seriousness.

Seeing that, Lucian sighed, "Well, I'll have to start from the beginning… When we grouped up and I decided to fight the Ourae while letting you guys sneak up here, I snuck a shadow soldier in each of you for protection in case something went wrong.

After killing Ourae, I used my abilities to make him my shadow soldier. It almost took every ounce of magic in my body in return, but I wasn't able to get him at full strength. That's when you all first saw me; I had blood on me and was terribly weakened."

They looked at Lucian in surprise as Thalia asked, "Wait, so you mean to tell it wasn't because of the fight you were like that but because you used your ability?"

"Of course. I don't think I even got injured during my fight," Lucian said proudly.

"Wait, but what does that have to do with what just happened?" Luke asked.

"You sabotaged our plan on purpose… You knew our plan as you witnessed it happening through your shadow abilities, but you still went up and revealed Luke's name on purpose," Annabeth stated in shock, with a hand on her chin, as she knew Lucian was able to share his senses with his shadows.

"I mean, obviously. Why the hell would I just go out of my way to shout your names individually?" Lucian said, rolling his eyes.

"But why?" Annabeth asked, still unable to figure it out.

"Your plan was perfect, Annabeth, no doubt about it. Without me, I'm sure all three of you would have gotten the quest complete without even having the need to fight. But there was just one problem with your way of doing it; ultimately, you would have only received one apple, and that's it."

"Our quest is only for one apple though," Thalia retorted, still not seeing the point Lucian was making.

Lucian nodded his head. "Yes, the quest did demand one apple… But I demanded more. For my ultimate goal, I need more than one apple, and as such, I changed the plan halfway through. I revealed Luke's name, which made them angry at being lied to and deceived.

I performed my whole theatrics, which got me five apples. I couldn't ask for more; if I did, they would have taken longer in picking the apples, and the effects of the spell would have worn off, making them aware of what they were doing.

Oh, and I couldn't do this while being in perfect health. If I came back from fighting a God in perfect health, they would have been suspicious, so I didn't heal myself or restore my magic when coming up.

I had humiliated them. When I did that, not only did they get tricked by you guys, they got tricked once more in the same minutes, and they lost five whole apples they were supposed to protect.

They saw me weaken and bloody, making them think they had a chance to catch us and retrieve what was stolen. Which is exactly what I wanted and which is again why I didn't heal myself.

So, thinking they had a chance to kill me and retrieve the golden apple, they left the garden unattended. While we were running away, I didn't wash up the blood off of me or anything so they could follow us further away from the garden.

Once they had taken a full day away, I would restore myself and shadow travel all of us here where I can pick as many golden apples as I need without worry!"

All they could do was look at Lucian with horror, after all not only has he manipulate the sisters, he had manipulate them as well.

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A/N: I made a new fic please check it out

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