Chapter 1: The Garden

Percy's POV

I could see the garden from here. The sun had almost set, so I had to enter soon. I ran faster, because if I didn't get there soon, I would miss my chance. I was slowly enveloped in the mist, and I got the feeling that I was being watched. I guess it was possible, seeing as I AM in The Garden of the Hesperides.

Why, you ask me. Well, I was doing this so that Athena would let me marry Annabeth. I know, that sounds amazing that she would even consider it. But, she's making me do something I probably wouldn't survive. Think about it for a second.

Have you guessed it yet? I'm in The Garden of the Hesperides. I'm being watched, and for good reason too. If I survive this, I will definitely be broadcast on Hephaestus T.V. for years to come. You still haven't guessed it yet? Well, let me tell you then. La-don. Yep you heard me right, I have to fight, AND KILL, Ladon.

Amazed yet? You should be.

When I walked into the garden, I saw that behind the Tree was a lake, that wasn't there the last time we came through here. Huh, I wonder when that got added.

Anyways, I was here and watched and all I could do was watch in amazement. Someone had let at least 50 deer go in the garden, and Ladons' heads were darting around the garden and picking up the deer, and eating them at the same time.

"This is not going to be fun," I said to myself.

Ladon must have had super hearing, because as soon as I said this he swung his head in my direction and glared at me. I almost laughed out loud when I saw at least 15 of the heads still had the whole deer in their mouths.

I drew my sword, Anaklusmos, (SP?) said, "Hi," and charged. He spit poison at me with 7 of his heads, stretched out 53 heads and snapped at me and, apparently, it has 1 brain per head because the other 40 just stared at me like I was crazy, which, I must admit, I probably am.

I jumped back to dodge the poison, and when the heads came near me, I slashed at them and cut three of them off. I think this made it mad because this time it sent all of its heads to snap at me this time, and I couldn't dodge all of them, so I did the only thing that came naturally,(besides swinging a sword of course) I used the water from the lake and formed a sort of sphere around myself, that was 20 feet in diameter.

When I did that, the water blocked most of the heads but some of them got through. When I saw this, I instantly froze the water and saw that I had trapped 17 heads in the ice. However, the water wasn't that thick, and I only got 7 of the heads cut off before the heads tried to spread apart and shattered the ice.

I saw Ladon charging towards me and knew that water or ice wouldn't stop him, but I tried. He slowed down a bit and then he was on top of me. He swung three of his heads at me and sent me into the mountain behind the lake that I had seen earlier.

My last thought before I blacked out was, this is going to be harder than I thought . . .

Time Skip: Three hours later . . .

I woke up to the sound of thunder and felt rain hitting me in the face. I sat up wondering where I was. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks, I was trying to kill myself by fighting Ladon, so that I could marry Annabeth.

I looked around and saw that Ladon hit me so hard that I had knocked off part of the mountain, covered part of the lake and created a ledge that I must've landed on. Too bad that that land slide didn't crush Ladon for me, I thought.

I stood up and saw that I was around fifty feet above the bottom of the land slide area that turned into the lake almost immediately. I decided that I could just slide down the land slide area and into the lake. So I slid down on my butt and was almost immediately wrapped in the warmth of the lake. I felt energy course through my veins.

When Ladon saw me, I think he was surprised, because he stumbled as he was walking around the garden. I drew Riptide and charged at him, practically feeling my eyes glow with power. I think I might have seen a little fear in Ladons 180 eyes that he had left. But that was impossible, I mean, Ladon, afraid of me, yeah right.

That thought changed from, yeah right, to, oh, I can see why, when I looked at myself and at the grass and trees around me. I had a mini hurricane around me again, just like when I fought Hyperion except that this one was even more powerful.

"More," I said, and it got even more powerful. I also noticed that the sky was being affected by my power now. There were dark clouds above us, and I even saw lightning.

Wow, didn't know I was that powerful.

I charged Ladon, and all he did was stand there. I somehow ended up under Ladon and had a thought as I capped Riptide and put it away. I summoned some water from the lake and made a spear that was at least 3 feet in diameter. I stabbed it through one of Ladons' legs and into the ground, and changed the tip of the ice into a grappling hook type thing so it wouldn't be ripped out of the ground.

I heard Ladon roar, and he started to thrash around. I quickly summoned 3 more, added 1 more to the leg that already had one making each of his back feet have 2 of the spear grappling hooks in them.

Ladon roared again, I couldn't tell if it was because of pain, or anger. He roared and started thrashing around again. I quickly got out from under him.

I had a sudden thought. I quickly got out from under him.

I had a sudden thought. I don't think that would work though, and, even if it did, why hasn't Poseidon become King of the Gods if he was THAT powerful?

Anyways, I started to concentrate on Ladons blood, and tried to make it heat up. It seemed to be working, as Ladon roared, and this time I could tell it was from pain. He thrashed around again and broke his feet free. I concentrated again and made his blood below freezing temperature.

Ladon seemed to be slowing down, but I knew I couldn't keep this up forever, because I could feel myself getting weaker. I acted quickly and focused on the blood that was in all of the 90 brains that he had left. I froze it immediately, and Ladon froze, and fell over. He evaporated into golden dust and I sank to my knees. I walked over to the tree, picked one of the golden apples, put it in my pocket and decided I should take a nap. I laid down against the tree and almost immediately fell asleep.

Time Skip: 2 ½ hours later

I woke up but still felt pretty weak. I walked over to the lake and jumped in. I felt energized by this and walked out after about 15 minutes.

When I came out I came face to face with Athena.

"Great job, and by the way, you can ask Annabeth to marry you if you want," Athena said.

"Really," I asked, "thank you so much."

"I need you to close your eyes so I can transport us to Olympus so the rest of the gods' can talk to you."

"Okay."

I closed my eyes, but I felt when we were transported away.