After several tumultuous hours of flight, the plane finally touched down in Denver, Colorado. Ron was the first to get off the plane; he fell to the ground, sobbing. The others frowned as they picked him up and kept going.

"Oh my God. Oh my God! Oh, my freaking God!" Jacquelyn cried out as soon as she sat on a chair. "Holy crap."

"You said it," said Percy. "I never want to do anything like that ever again in life."

"Same here," said Annabeth. "I don't know about you, but I am done with planes!!"

"I wonder if this is the right place," said Grover.

"Who knows," said Percy. "I just wanted to get away from that Hermaphrodite. If I see it again, it'll be too soon."

"Looks like we did make it after all," said Jacquelyn. They all stared at her. "Did you know that Denver is known as the "Mile High City"?"

"I did not know that," said Annabeth.

"The entire city is one mile above sea level," Jacquelyn continued. "But what exactly we are looking for still confuses me."

"I'm sure that we'll figure out something soon," said Grover.

Just then, someone walked towards them. It was Clarisse La Rue, and by the looks of it, she wasn't very happy to see them.

She yelled in anger, "Have you guys any idea of how worried everyone back at the camp is about you miscreants? Chiron had to organize several search parties and report you missing. How could you just walk away from the camp?"

"I'd like to know where you got the notion to go chasing after us," Percy said in anger. Clarisse stared at him. "We've already had enough of being chased around by Cyclopes, monsters, and Hermaphrodites..."

Everyone stared at the Hermaphrodite as it approached them. "Oh no way!" Jacquelyn cried out as she stared at him. "How the heck did he find us?"

"You mean to tell me that he came after us after all the hard work we didn't try to get away from him?" Annabeth yelled out in anger. "I can't believe it! How is that even possible?"

"You thought that you could escape from me?" said the Hermaphrodite. "Well, you can't. No one escapes from me!"

"Oh my God, it's ugly!" Clarisse cried out in horror as she stared at the Hermaphrodite.

"I heard that," said the Hermaphrodite. "That wasn't very nice. I expected that a daughter of Ares would come up with some better insults."

"I'm gonna rip you to shreds!" Clarisse shouted as she reached for her sword, but Annabeth stopped her. "You can't kill him, and not here, where people would see us," she said.

"Let's get away from him and find somewhere to recover," said Percy. "I don't think that I can take another minute of this."

"Yeah," said Jacquelyn. "All this running around has been murder on my hair."

"There is a little beauty salon down the street where we could get our hair done," said Annabeth.

"Good," said Grover. "My hooves are killing me."

"You'll never escape from me!" the Hermaphrodite laughed as he watched the kids run away from him. "I will get you, my sweetheart!"

Little did they know that the Hermaphrodite would be the least of their problems...

*-*-*-*-*

At the same time, Harry and Hermione had been trapped on the yacht for almost two days now. They were getting tired of it, and to be honest, they both hated Luke for everything that he had done to them.

Luke had called them to his office where he said, "I suppose you're wondering why I'm keeping you alive when you both should be dead..."

"I don't know what you're up to, but Ron and Jacquel are going to find us!" said Hermione. "And when they do, nothing in the world will stop them from breaking you in half!"

"They're going to tear me apart?" Luke mocked her. "I'd love to see them try."

"There's no way you're going to survive after Jacquel gets done with you," said Harry. "I already saw what she can do, and I already know that she's capable of destroying even the toughest supervillain out there with nothing but a simple spell that a child could use! She will break you before you have a chance to blink!"

The sound of Luke's laughter followed them as they were taken from his office and thrown back into the dungeon.

*-*-*-*-*

Jacquelyn said, "OK, so what we have here is this quest from Hades which is slowly dragging us to hell. Why are we doing this again?"

"It's because this prophecy is telling us that we have to do this mission," said Ron. "After all, I've been outed as a demigod, which will bringing the Weasley family nothing but shame and disgrace. And let's not mention the fact that Dumbledore probably knew that I was a demigod and yet he forced me to go to Hogwarts...

"Well, he tried to get to me, but my mother, grandmother, and Nichollo stopped him," said Jacquelyn.

"And even then, who's to say that my mother can't expose Dumbledore for everything he's done?" said Jacquelyn.

"You're so lucky," said Ron.

"I'm not lucky," said Jacquelyn. "Dumbledore is the one who's delusional. Forcing an innocent child to kill a dark lord while the child could have easily sat him down and talked to him about his issues is just disgusting! I wouldn't even let my own bastard child near that old man; that's my take on it."

Ron frowned, knowing that he would eventually have to face Dumbledore and demand an explanation about why he went through what he had gone through...