The end of the world started with poor transportation.

Yeah, that sounded about right to Danny.

Even before all of this started, he hated taking the bus, when he had gotten his powers it had been a blessing in disguise once he had mastered flying.

Flying was liberating, flying made all the worries in the world fade away, flying helped him avoid the bus crowd.

It was the best thing in the world.

And now he was back on a bus.

Granted, he was back on a bus because he was on a quest to stop the destruction of the Mist and save billions of lives, but he was still on a bus.

Percy was staring out the window next to him, leg tapping up and down. And Harry was fiddling with the sleeves of his jacket, seemingly lost in thought.

Danny wondered what exactly he was thinking about. It could have been anything, his friends, the magical disaster that was sure to come, Percy and himself.

Danny himself was still reeling, and it had been a few days, never before had he had to deal with something like this before all the fights he had been in had been so clear-cut, contained to Amity Park for the most part. It had been simply, a ghost comes through the ghost portal, fight the ghost, send them back.

Now here he was half way across the world on another bus heading to save a goddess or entity from fading.

He was still lost in thought when his phone rang.

It startled all of them, not used to technology being part of their lives Harry and Percy looked a little lost when Danny fished it out of his pocket. He assumed that they had never had to use a cellphone before while saving the world considering they had IM and Patronuses.

But Danny just had a cellphone, and his sister was calling.

"Hello?" He asked hesitantly, bringing the phone up to his ear, wondering what Jazz needed so badly that she was going to call him while she knew he was off on a dangerous quest to save the world.

"Danny!" Jazz's voice came through the phone, seemingly hysterical. "Danny its the portal!" There was more she shouted after that, but it was distant, and there were loud booming noises coming from somewhere in the back that drowned her voice out. But Danny got the gist of it.

"Jazz! What's wrong?"

Percy and Harry's heads snapped over to him as he clutched the phone tightly, trying to understand what his sister was shouting.

"The portal...!" There was static, and Danny's heart seized for a moment, worried beyond belief about what was happening at home.

"Jazz, Jazz listen to me I can't hear you, what is going on with the portal?"

That didn't make Percy or Harry feel better he could tell, but from what Danny could understand, there wasn't anything to feel better about. It seemed that their situation was getting worse.

Jazz didn't respond on the phone again; there was static.

Danny slowly lowered the phone from his ear, eyes wide. Percy tried to ask him something, but he was only vaguely aware of it. Harry carefully took the phone from his hand, bringing it up to his ear to see if someone was still on the line, there was nothing, so he carefully hung up. Sharing a glance with Percy, Harry carefully shook his head.

Neither of them was sure what had just happened, but they had heard a little about the ghost portal from Danny if something was going on with it, there was no way that it was a good thing.

"Hey Danny," Percy tried, carefully placing his had on his brother's shoulder. "You need to breathe, okay? Breathe with me, copy my breathing."

Harry was moving to kneel in front of his brother, taking his hand carefully, taking care not to startle him as Danny began focusing on Percy, trying to focus on copying his breathing. His sister had sounded so scared, she had been screaming, she had called him because she was afraid and he was halfway across the world on a quest, and she had stilled called him because he had always been there to help them with whatever happened in their messed up town.

And he hadn't been there.

His breathing picked up again, the more he thought about it, the more he could recall the fear in his sisters voice, anything could have happened with the portal, it was a rift in space sitting in their basement, but he had always been there to deal with those problems, he was the only one who could and he hadn't...

A stinging pain flared across his cheek, a loud smacking sound echoing around him as he blinked back into focus, Percy and Harry's faces blurring into focus.

"...Shouldn't have slapped him." Harry was scolding Percy, but his face was pinched with more worry than anger.

"You slapped me?" Danny couldn't help but ask, wondering how long they had been trying to calm him down; the bus ride wasn't very long after all.

"I didn't hit you hard," Percy defended, then his eyes focused on Danny sternly. "Are you feeling okay?"

Danny became aware that both of his hands were in his brothers, they were huddled around him gripping his hands tightly. They were worried about him. It was just like Jazz would have done if he had started to panic. With everything going on they hadn't had a lot of bonding time, it was mostly just them trying to follow the quest and learning about each other's worlds. But here they were anyway, fretting over him as siblings did.

It made him feel slightly less scared after Jazz's phone call, he wasn't alone, and his family in Amity knew how to take care of themselves.

"That was Jazz," He managed to choke out, sitting up but neither Percy or Harry pulled away from him, listening intensely. "There was a lot of screaming, I couldn't understand very much, but something was going wrong with the ghost portal. I don't know what happened the phone cut out, but there was so much screaming."

Neither Percy or Harry knew what to say to that, so they just squeezed Danny's hands tighter, trying to be supportive.

"But," Danny said trying to calm his heart rate down again. "They know how to deal with all the ghosts just as well as I do. We have to finish this quest as fast as possible."

Percy nodded. "I agree. The faster we can get this quest done the faster things will go back to normal. We can try IMing, your sister when we get off the bus."

Danny nodded. "I would like it if we could try that. Sorry for using up so many of your Drachma."

Percy chuckled a little at that. "Yeah, but what else are brothers for then to use my money and make me worry?"

They all laughed together as Danny got more comfortable on the bus seat. "How much longer on this bus?"

"Not long," Harry told Danny, as they all settled back into their seats, trying to relax as they had been before.

But there was a new tension in the air from the phone call that they couldn't ignore.

Danny missed the concerned looks Percy and Harry shared over his head.

Stone Hedge was impressive.

The stones were easily over 13 feet tall and several feet wide.

And it was incredibly difficult to imagine anything moving stones that big without magic.

It was a good thing then, Harry thought. That magic was how they moved the stones into place. Much easier than trying to move them by hand.

The only problem was, now that they were here they didn't know what to do.

This entire quest seemed to be like that. They took a step forward and then stalled. They barely had any guidance on where to go or what to do, but they were expected to do it anyway.

It was like taking a test without knowing what the test was on, and Harry had experience in doing that, and it was not enjoyable.

At least during a test, Harry thought sourly, if I fail no one dies.

Percy, Danny and himself had all headed away from the crowd first to try and IM Jazz back. The phone call from earlier had given Harry chills. The echoes of what was being said, or screamed over the phone were terrible.

He didn't even want to think about how bad it must've been for Danny.

Danny who had had a panic attack before seemingly going into denial about anything being wrong. Apparently determined to believe everything was fine.
Harry didn't blame him; there was almost nothing that they could do from over here besides finishing the quest. He didn't even want to think about how he would feel if he got a message from Hermione screaming for help and he was stuck all the way at Stone Hedge.

Still, they were going to try and IM Jazz. It couldn't hurt, but Harry was scared about what they might see once the message connected.

However, when Percy went through the usual procedure, and asked for Jazz Fenton, nothing happened. Hands shaking Danny tried again, calling out into the mist that Percy was creating.

"Show me, Jazz Fenton!"

There was still nothing.

Then, the mist seemed to shift, and Harry could see the hope form in Danny's eyes only for it to be crushed when the Drachma was flung back out of the mist.

"Danny..." Percy tried to say, not sure how to tell him that it was useless to try again as Danny determinedly picked the Drachma up flipping it back into the mist, calling out Jazz's name again.

This time, however, the Drachma soared straight through the mist and fell out on the other side, landing in the grass with a dull thud.

Danny rounded on Percy, eyes wide.

"What does that mean?"

Percy however, seemed to be lost for words. "I've never seen it do that before. I don't know."

"It has to be because of whatever is going on with magic. We don't know what runs off of magic, who knows what else is going to stop working if we don't try and figure this out soon. It's just like you said on the bus Danny; we have to finish this quest as soon as possible." Harry reminded, trying to be sensitive, but not sure what to say in this situation.

Danny seemed lost for a moment, his eyes still on the Drachma laying in the grass in front of him.

Blinking a few times Danny seemed to come back into it, squaring his shoulders and nodding.

"Okay, yeah, let's go raid, Stone Hedge."

Raiding Stone Hedge was not as much fun as it sounded.

Not that any of this was fun, but navigating through the crowds of tourists while trying not to look suspicious and get noticed by police was especially not fun.

Luckily all of the paths around Stone Hedge were open that day, so they at least had the opportunity to wander around without the risk of being caught. But they weren't allowed to touch the stones.

This would have been much easier, Percy thought, if he could use the mist and touch the stones to see if they would impart some ancient wisdom on how to save magic and stop the upcoming war.

Yeah, that would be nice.

About ten feet to his right, Percy could see Harry glancing around, children running past him as he tried not to bump into anyone.

To his left, he could see Danny, whose eyes seemed distant and he was staring blankly at a random spot on the ground. Percy figured that Danny could get a free pass. If one of his family members had called him like that he would be a wreck, he was anxious enough as it was with IM being down. If there were any problems, there was no longer any way for anyone at camp to contact him.

Percy shook his head, trying to rid his head of those thoughts. The last thing they needed was for all of them to lose focus. Danny was the one who had the most reason to be worried.

He wished they could hurry up and find whatever it was that Hecate had sent them here for.

As another person collided with his shoulder trying to move past him, he thought again how much easier this would be to do at night. But there was no time to wait for that; they had to try and find whatever it was they were looking for now.

He was about to try and find Harry and Danny when a loud yell caught his attention.

And of course, the yell came from Danny.

Danny who was so distracted had accidentally collided with the back of a man who had been holding one of the hot drinks from the Café.

And of course, because the universe was against them, the drink had spilled onto the women in front of the man. The hot beverage quickly scolding her back.

The man had rounded on Danny, who was frozen in shock at what had happened and grabbed him by the collar.

The yell Danny let out had not only caught Percy and Harry's attention but also the attention of the guards who were stationed around the structure.

As the guards moved forward to break up the two up. Percy and Harry were also rushing forwards to help when they caught sight of Danny's face.

He was smirking.

The entire thing hadn't been an accident at all; he was drawing the attention of everyone in the area so that they could search as they pleased. As Harry and Percy realized the plan, Danny caught their eye, nodding before reeling his head back and headbutted the man holding him in the face.

And all hell broke loose.

The few guards who had stayed at their stations, figuring that the few guards who had originally gone to help were enough, rushed forwards when an all-out fistfight broke out right in the middle of Stone Hedge.

"This is our chance." Harry hissed to Percy, who nodded as they ran towards the stones surrounding them, quickly examining them, and trying to run their hands over the rock, trying to find something hidden there.

There was a lot of rock to cover, and Danny could only keep everyone occupied for so long.

So far it seemed that he was using both intangibility and his flare for the dramatics to keep everyone's hands off of him and the man he was fighting, but all of their eyes on him.

Percy was trying desperately to think of where they could look, everything about Stone Hedge seemed to be the same, there was no particular point that stood out from the other rock.

It was just rock.

But what else had Hecate said? The Giant's Dance, the Heel Stone.

But hadn't he heard something about the Heel Stone on the way here?

He tried to remember, they had stopped in the Visitor Center to get their tickets, and there had been games for kids to play to learn more about Stone Hedge. One of them had said something about the Heel Stone.

Which meant that one of these stone's was the Heel Stone specifically.

Hecate had told them right where to look.

He ran back over to where Danny was just being separated from the fight. The man was sporting a split lip and a black eye, Danny was better off, having the power of intangibility on his side helped, he figured. But as much as he wanted to help Danny, he only had a little time left.

He tapped the shoulder of a women standing next to him in the crowd.

She looked over at him startled, but Percy didn't have time to feel bad about startling her, "Sorry, but do you know which one of these stone's is the Heel Stone?"

"Oh, yes, of course, the Heel Stone is over there. It's farther away from the circle."

"Thanks!" Percy called back to her as he sprinted towards where she had pointed.

And there it was, a stone close to the main road, they could probably investigate it much easier than they could any of the stones in Stone Hedge.

He jogged over to it, dodging people as he went, careful not to step on any children running around. There were only one or two people around the Heel Stone, everyone drew towards the circle when Danny had started the fight, and he was quickly able to walk up to the stone and place his hand on it.

There was a strange warmth coming from the stone that Percy didn't think was normal, but nothing else special happened.

Placing two hands on the stone Percy concentrated, circling the entire stone to see if he had missed anything.

Nothing was there.

Percy but back a groan of frustration, he was sure this was the right place. None of the other stones had this warmth in them. He just had to figure out how to unlock it.

Percy jumped when a hand was suddenly placed on his shoulder.

He spun around, ready to bolt if it was a guard, but quickly relaxed at seeing Harry behind him.

"I figured it out, it's this stone, but I don't know how to make it work," Percy told him excitedly.

"That's great!" Harry said, but continued quickly.

"But Danny just got arrested. We need to go break him out of jail now."