Chapter 26, Worst. Rodeo. Ever!

Okay seriously guys, I'm still in a mindset where I just can't focus that much on the Percy Jackson books. I've been watching a butt-ton of Kamen Rider, Super Sentai, and Ultraman these days, so my fanfiction brain has been in Tokusatsu mode, and NOT Percy Jackson mode. It also doesn't help that the Trials of Apollo just haven't been that good lately. I swear I will outline books 2 and 3 as thoroughly as possible before even writing the first chapter of either one of them, so DO NOT expect the rest of the trilogy any time soon at this point. I've learned the hard way that I NEED to outline my stories completely from now on.

Zane's POV

As soon as the four of them had stepped through, the portal stopped glowing and dropped on the ground, turning back into a normal pile of sand.

"So what's our trial?" I asked Atreus.

"Through this door." The Last Spartan answered. "The five if you are each to kill an opponent using only your Key of Ascension." He stuck the bladed end of his spear into the wall in front of us, seeming to make a keyhole appear out of nowhere. Either that keyhole had been hidden by an illusion, or we simply hadn't noticed it until just then due to all the magic glowing in front of that wall. Either way, the wall opened up to reveal some sort of arena. It was divided into five sections, with a large circular pit in the center. In each section was something I didn't expect; five large minotaurs, each wielding huge weapons.

"Are those..." James asked.

"That's impossible! There's only one Minotaur!" Annabeth shouted. "I should know. Percy killed it twice."

"These are a few of its children, sent against Kratos in his many battles against the gods." Atreus clarified for us. We'd almost forgotten that these 'demimonsters' were starting to show up again. "Choose your opponents wisely."

I looked around at the various minotaurs. I spotted one with thick, spiky bone armor, a third horn, and a gigantic bone-axe. "I'll take that one." I pointed Luna towards one covered in ice on its arms, horns, hooves, thighs, and back, carrying a slightly smaller axe, telling her and Annabeth to switch weapons because Luna was better with ranged weapons. I directed Annabeth towards one that was completely unarmed. It looked more built for speed than the others. Annabeth would need the shield in case she couldn't dodge, and it would make it easier to get a good hit with her dagger. I pointed Frank towards one that was very heavily armored, knowing his club would be able to beat through that. With only one left, James silently assumed it was his to fight. It was wearing what looked like pretty standard armor. It would be easy enough for him to get good hits between gaps in the armor with his spear, and he'd need the extra reach against an armed opponent. Nodding in agreement, we all walked around the outside of the arena, each stopping at the section of the minotaur type we'd picked.

"Very well. The swordsman will fight the Minotaur Tormentor. The heavy one will take the Armored creature. The spear-man will attack the Elite. The one with the shield will battle the Brute. And the ranger will fight the beast of Erebus." The five of us took a look at the arena. Our minotaur opponents were starting to look at us, probably to size us up before the fight. "Begin!" Atreus told us, slamming the butt of his spear on the floor. I immediately felt the floor drop beneath me, and slid down into the arena. I didn't have time to process what happened when it did, because the Minotaur Tormentor roared like crazy and swung his bone-axe at me. I used my split-second of focus to dodge before I'd gotten sliced in half.

With my head back in the game, I kept an eye on the overgrown cheeseburger to get his pattern of attack. As soon as he swung at me, I made a slash at an arm, hoping to make him drop his axe, but his bracers were too thick. His reflexes were too quick for me to go or his chest without getting chopped, and there were too many spikes on his back. I went for his legs, since they had the least armor. I watched for another big swing, and then dodge to the minotaur's side, slashing his leg as I went past him. He roared in pain and came at me again, partially limping. I did the same thing as before, going for the same leg, and he started limping even harder. Clearly, he wasn't exactly a smart minotaur, because the third slash send him crashing to the ground. Not wanting him to get back up, I rushed at him and stabbed him in the side, pushing him to roll over onto his back. Quickly pulling my sword out, I held it by both hands and attempted to finish him off, but he grabbed my arms and resisted with all his remaining strength. I couldn't get the sword in with him holding it like that, so I kicked one of his arms off my sword, and the blade quickly sank into the roof of his mouth. I gave it a couple of twists to the left, then right, to finish him off and make sure he was dead. That was surprisingly easy, but the others were finishing up their fights just as well.

Luna managed to use the sling, which apparently shot explosives, to blast off the Erebus' ice armor, and finished him off with an bomb to the mouth. James tricked his minotaur into getting his axe stuck in the ground, then ran up his arm and impaled him through the eye while the dumb bull was trying to pull it out. Frank had clearly attacked his minotaur head-on, managing to dent its armor inwards to the point of crushing limbs and the rib cage, eventually finishing him off with a club to the face. Finally, Annabeth finished off the brute by deflecting his charge with a shield-smack right to the face, and immediately stabbing him in the neck.

"You have passed." Atreus told us. The arena floor rose up to floor level again, and we regrouped with the others. "Now, if your friends have passed, the weapons are yours." We approached what I assumed was the final test, but definitely the easiest. Five statues of Dark Satyrs stood in front of us, each posing as if they were supposed to have a weapon in their hands, but were completely unarmed. This part was definitely the easiest. All we had to do was match the poses with the weapon types, and put each Key of Ascension in the statue's hands. As soon as the fifth weapon was held by its matching statue, the statues crumbled to dust and dropped the weapons on the ground in front of us. The wall behind where the statues had been split in half, revealing another locked door, one with a circular seal resembling a Spartan shield.

"This seal is mine to unlock." Atreus told us as he approached the door. I figured the weapons were behind it, and I was about to be proven right. Atreus held his shield up in front of the door, lining up his own shield with the seal. The red Greek letter Lambda on each lined up and had what looked like a laser light show shooting between the two versions of the emblem. "If your friends passed their test, they'll be on the other side."

"What?!" Annabeth shouted. "What if they've been back there with no air?!" Her protests went ignored. Atreus said nothing as a glowing orange line appeared right down the middle of the seal, as if magic fire had appeared out of nowhere to cut it in half. Since the seal was immediately split down the middle, I figured that was the case. The door slowly swung open, revealing Percy, Jason, Nico, and Sierra waiting inside. "Percy!" Annabeth shouted before rushing inside, obviously relieved that Percy was okay. Piper did the same with Jason, and I guessed Sierra was waiting for me to do the same.

"So how was your test?" I asked, earning a punch in the arm. I knew she'd be able to handle whatever test she'd gotten. She is a daughter of Ares after all, and one with fire powers to boot. She's basically the hot girl in any decent action movie.

"At long last, I can rest." Atreus told us, walking towards something in the middle of the room. There it was. It looked like a massive treasure chest in the middle of the room, but with a Spartan shield on the front, the side facing the Last Spartan. He took the spear and slid the blade into a barely visible slot on the front, then turned the seal a quarter to the left. Immediately, a red flame started erupting on his hand, slowly spreading up his body. But he didn't seem to be in pain. In fact, he looked relieved as he dropped the spear and shield on the floor. Then, just a few seconds after the flames had enveloped him completely, he vanished, the flames extinguishing themselves just as quickly. The Last Spartan was dead.

We didn't really have time to process his release from immortality before we saw the goal of our quest, right in front of us. The walls and lid of the bronze chest folded down and seemed to sink into floor, revealing a box that looked like it was designed to hold Hell itself. The wider sides of the box each had two horned faces facing away from each other. Each narrow end on the left and right side had just one horned face, but from a front view. The top of the box seemed to have eight hands gripping an oval on the top.

"Is that...?" Percy asked.

"Well, unless there's another gigantic box made of Celestial Bronze, sculpted with demonic imagery and looks like it's trapped a raging inferno inside, I'd say this is Pandora's Box." I answered.

"Alright, who wants first pick of weapons?" Annabeth asked.

"Shouldn't the obvious choice go first?" Sierra asked, pointing to me.

I looked around at the others. No one had a look of annoyance or protest. I guess they figured the son of Kratos should be the one to finish the quest. "We can sort through the weapons on the way back to Camp. We need to get this box back to the ship. No telling how many monsters, and gods know what else are after this thing." I told them. They agreed and we all started trying to move the box as a group. I did, however, pick up Atreus' spear and shield, the Arms of Sparta. The shield turned into a watch on my wrist, and the spear turned into a box cutter.

Anyway, the box was unbelievably heavy. It took all 20 of us to move it. Something was off though. It shouldn't have been this heavy. If I could shatter a chimera's entire arm with one punch before, why couldn't I lift more of this box now?

"I'll move the ship around so we can load it on." Calypso volunteered, heading back towards the Argo 3 once we were outside. We carried the box outside, taking longer than I thought we should have, and everything seemed quiet so far, but (and I know how overused this is about to sound) too quiet. That's when I heard something stick into the box right between me and Sierra. Looking over, I saw an arrow with flashing red lights on it...and it was beeping. It took about two seconds, plus my memory of the first few seasons of Arrow, to put two and two together.

"GET BACK!" I shouted to the others. We all dropped the box on the arrow and jumped the Hades out of the way, just before it exploded, knocking the box sideways hard enough to scatter the weapons all over the ground. I looked behind me to see none other than Seth, the son of Orion from before, standing there with his bow. "I knew this was going too well."

"Thanks for dealing with the Last Spartan for us. We would have proven...troublesome. Now if you'll stand aside, we won't kill any of you as we take the weapons."

"You and what..." I didn't get to finish before I saw unusual shadows on the ground. I looked up and spotted multiple winged figures descending to the ground. They looked like black-winged angels, and they were wearing skull masks with ram horns. "...army?"

"I'm glad you asked that." Seth told me, completely casually as the figures landed on the ground next to him. "The Alchemist has been saving these for a very special occasion. It's taken quite a while for him to organize all of this, but now they're ready. Meet the Alchemist's elite fighting force, the Reapers of Thanatos."

I looked at the weapons. There was no way to stall for time before they grabbed the scattered weapons. We'd have to fight our way out of this, and there was only one way to do that, so I shouted our only option to the others. "GRAB ONE AND ATTACK!"

Again, I'm updating this as often as I can, but I didn't outline this story very far before I started, as I've stated before and have no idea how many times I have to tell you guys. Anyway, I've also got about 7 tokusatsu fanfic ideas burning a whole in my head, so I'm going to be heavily preoccupied with those for quite a while.