Ikki teleported directly to Santa Monica Beach, the place where he felt his friends were sent when they stepped on the pearl given to them by Poseidon.
He appeared at the corner of a deserted alley very close to the beach. He looked at the sunny sky, gazing at the position of the sun almost rising, the chariot of Apollo, and he roughly knew the exact time. It was probably almost six in the morning, which meant it was June 21st, the day of the summer solstice.
Looking around, he also noticed the state of Los Angeles. It was in flames, clouds of smoke rising from neighborhoods all over the city. There had been an earthquake, undoubtedly, and the blame lay with Hades, who got angry with Percy's accusations and made the Underworld tremble, causing a strong earthquake on the surface.
He ignored it and walked towards the beach.
As soon as he reached the beach, he saw the coast guard heading towards his friends. He simply crossed his arms and waited, while his mind tried to stay distracted, thinking of ways to improve his strength and create spells.
A Coast Guard boat picked up Percy, his mother, Annabeth, and Grover, but they were too busy to stay with them for long or to wonder why an adult woman would take three children dressed casually to swim in the middle of the bay. There was a disaster to deal with. Their radios were jammed with emergency calls. They dropped the four off at the Santa Monica pier with towels around their shoulders and water bottles saying "I'm a Junior Coast Guard!" and quickly rushed off to save more people.
After getting to dry land, they staggered out onto the beach, seeing the city burn with a beautiful sunrise. It was as if they had just returned from the Underworld—which was true. Percy's backpack was heavy, with Zeus' master bolt. But his heart was relieved that he had saved his mother. Thanks to his friend, if it weren't for Ikki, he would have had to leave her in the Underworld.
Something he honestly didn't even want to think about. Luckily, his mom didn't seem to remember her stay in the Underworld.
Ikki approached them as soon as the Coast Guard left. The moment she saw him, Annabeth relentlessly questioned him about everything that happened in the Underworld, even though she was cute with her curiosity burning intensely. She should be a little more patient and not ask thousands of questions in one breath, not giving him time to answer any of them properly.
In the end, he explained everything to her and her friends, about kidnapping the Queen of the Underworld to use as leverage, and he even lied, saying he found her by chance and that the plan just came up out of nowhere.
Annabeth asked how he had returned to the surface, and he said he had teleported through the lightning, something from his demi-god heritage.
Athena's daughter had never heard of this ability in the children of Zeus, but assumed it was because Ikki was special. So, beyond the initial surprise, she didn't ask more questions.
While Athena's daughter was thinking about Ikki's answers, Percy was in a good mood because his mom had been saved. He also thought it must be cool to teleport anywhere in the world through lightning, though he thought water would be even cooler...
Grover was just being himself, pure nervousness...
After all of his friends' questions were answered, Ikki talked to Sally. She gave him a hug that reminded him of his mother. Well, she must have been blaming herself or something for leaving him behind to face the monsters.
Ikki offered to take her home via teleportation, which Percy agreed to. Although he didn't want his mom to be near her terrible stepfather for even a second, he knew it would be safer there.
He promised to tell her everything that happened since he arrived at the camp. After a loving moment between mother and son, Ikki took her home through his [Teleportation] and returned in seconds. From his friends' perspective, they saw him and Sally disintegrating into lightning, and after a few minutes, Ikki reappearing through the lightning...
Illusion manipulation and presence were useful...
The four of them started talking about the mission while walking towards the exit of Santa Monica Beach. They needed to discuss the details and their next step now that the true culprit had been revealed.
"I can't believe it!" Annabeth still couldn't believe it, she said, "We went through all of that and…"
"We were just used?" Ikki said calmly, though the revelation of the master bolt in Percy's backpack had surprised him a bit, he almost instantly understood who the real culprit was.
He just knew something had gone wrong in the Underworld that made the real culprit appear, but he didn't know why until now.
Percy, a bit more irritated about being used, said, "It was a trick. A strategy worthy of Athena."
"Hey." Annabeth warned angrily. She narrowed her eyes at Percy.
Ikki said to Athena's daughter, "Anne, Percy didn't mean that. And with your intelligence, you must have figured it all out, right?"
She blushed slightly with the compliment and looked down, the anger disappeared. Annabeth sighed and said, "Yes. I'm sorry, Percy…"
Percy just shrugged. Already used to Annabeth's arrogance.
"Well, I don't understand!" Grover complained. He looked at his friends and asked, "Could someone explain to me properly how Ares became the real culprit?"
Percy and Annabeth had to hold back their laughter.
"Well, basically, as always, the prophecy was right." Ikki didn't even have to think before saying, "'You must go west and face the god who became disloyal.' But it wasn't Hades. Hades didn't want a war between the Big Three. Someone else carried out the theft. Someone stole Zeus' master bolt and Hades' helmet and schemed against Percy, and who was the only god we met on the way to the West? The one who gave Percy the backpack? It's obvious that the culprit is Ares…"
Grover's eyes lit up while Percy and Annabeth just nodded in agreement. They had come to the same conclusion.
Speaking of the culprit, there he was, waiting for them, in his black leather jacket and sunglasses, an aluminum baseball bat on his shoulder.
The motorcycle roared beside him, its headlight casting red sand.
"Hey, kids." Ares seemed genuinely happy to see them. He commented, "You should be dead."
Ikki looked at Ares, not at all surprised to see him waiting for them, and said, "I'm sorry to say this, but even death didn't want us around. Maybe it thought we were better alive, or maybe we're too annoying for it, who knows…"
"Funny." Ares said, smiling disdainfully. "I must say, Uncle Skull softened up to let the other brats live."
Ikki crossed his arms and said assertively, "Looks like your plan failed completely, huh? You stole the helmet of darkness and the master bolt. Didn't you, Ares?"
Ares grinned and said, "Seems like you've got a good head on your shoulders, but I didn't steal them personally. Gods taking each other's symbols of power, nah, nah, nah, that's unacceptable. But you're not the only heroes in the world who can give messages…"
"Who did you use? Clarisse? She was there on the winter solstice…" Percy said categorically, narrowing his eyes at the God of War.
The idea seemed to amuse him.
"It doesn't matter. The point, kids, is that you're stopping the war effort. Understand, you have to die in the Underworld, only then would you trigger the war I'm looking for."
"Then Old Seaweed and Zeus will be furious with Hades for killing you two. To help, the Breath of Corpse will have Zeus' master bolt, making him even angrier, not to mention Hades is still looking for it…"
At the end of his words, Ares pulled out a ski mask—from the kind bank robbers wear—and placed it in the middle of his motorcycle's handlebars.
Immediately, the mask transformed into an elaborate bronze war helmet.
"The helmet of darkness." Grover gasped.
"Exactly." He heard Ares confirm Grover's words, which took him out of his thoughts just in time to hear the God of War explain, "But where was I? Oh, yes, Hades will be furious with both Zeus and Poseidon because he doesn't know who took it. Soon we'll have a nice little triple brawl going on."
"But they're your family!" Annabeth protested.
Ares shrugged.
"The best kind of war. Always the bloodiest. Nothing like watching your relatives fight, I always say."
"You have a very strange fetish." Ikki said, frowning.
"Thanks." His words were a compliment to the God of War.
"You gave me the backpack in Denver." Percy recalled his first meeting with the God of War. "The master bolt was there all along."
"Yes and no." Ares said thoughtfully, with a disdainful smile. "It's probably too complicated for your little mortal brain to follow, but the backpack is the sheath of the master bolt, just a little adapted. The bolt is connected to it, like that sword of yours, kid. It always returns to your pocket, right?"
Percy wasn't sure how Ares knew that, but he figured a war god needs to know everything about weapons.
"Anyway." Ares continued explaining. "I modified the magic a little so the bolt would only return to the sheath after you reached the Underworld. Got close to Hades… Bingo! You received an email. If you died on the way, there would be no loss. I'd still have the weapon."
"But why didn't you just keep the bolt for yourself?" Ikki suddenly asked, narrowing his eyes at the God of War and continuing, "Why send it to Hades?"
Ares' jaw tightened. For a moment, it was almost as if he was hearing another voice deep in his head.
"Why didn't I… yes… with this kind of firepower…"
He held the trance for one second… two seconds…
Ikki looked at his friends who exchanged nervous glances until they saw Ares' face clear and he quickly made up an excuse.
"Because I didn't want to have problems. Better to be caught red-handed, holding the thing."
"You're lying." Ikki said, easily seeing through his lie. He continued, "Sending the bolt to the Underworld wasn't your idea, was it?"
"Of course it was!" Smoke escaped from under his sunglasses, as if they were about to catch fire.
"You didn't order the theft." Percy guessed, remembering the voice in the abyss in his dream. "Someone else sent a hero to steal the two items. Then, when Zeus sent you to catch him, you caught the thief. But you didn't deliver him to Zeus. Something convinced you to let him go. You kept the items until another hero could come and complete the delivery. That thing in the abyss is giving orders to you."
"I'm the god of war! I don't take orders from anyone! I don't have dreams!"
"Look, that's a slip-up... No one said anything about dreams." Ikki said with a small teasing smile.
Ares seemed agitated but tried to cover it up with a forced smile. He quickly said, "Let's get back to the issue at hand, kids. You're alive and I can't let you take that bolt to Olympus. Maybe I can convince those stubborn idiots to listen to you. Therefore, I need to kill you. Nothing personal."
He snapped his fingers. The sand exploded at his feet, and a ferocious boar appeared, even bigger and uglier than the one whose head was hanging above the door of Cabin Seven at Camp Half-Blood.
The beast dug at the sand, glaring at Ikki with small, bright eyes, lowering its razor-sharp tusks, waiting for the order to kill.
"Not this one, I'll be its opponent. You take care of the others." Ares said to his pet with disdain in his voice. He didn't even look at Percy, Annabeth, and Grover when he said this.
His eyes were focused on Ikki as he spoke, "Remember when I said we'd fight, kid? Are you ready to get a beating?"
Percy, Annabeth, and Grover visibly tensed up. Although Poseidon's son had thought about fighting Ares himself, Ikki was the better choice.
And they had their own problems to deal with. The boar looked at them with bright eyes...
"Percy, Anne, and Grover. You handle the boar, the little Ares..." Ikki said calmly, his eyes shining.
"Who are you calling a boar?" The God of War said. Ares seemed furious, his sunglasses starting to melt from the heat of his eyes.
Percy laughed at his friend's words, Ikki was always the best when it came to giving nicknames. His tension was gone. Annabeth and Grover didn't laugh, but their tension was gone too.
"I didn't call anyone a boar, you did that yourself." Ikki looked innocently at Ares before saying, "I think it would be an insult to boars, they seem smarter than you…"
This made Percy laugh again, Annabeth and Grover held back their laughter. They didn't want to offend a god by doing so.
"Kid, you're really starting to annoy me." Ares gritted his teeth, a blood-red aura swirling around his figure. He ordered the boar in a bloodthirsty way, "Kill those brats, especially the one who was laughing. Do it brutally."
"Don't worry about Ares. I'll deal with him. You take care of his little brother." Ikki said, walking closer to Ares.
Percy, Annabeth, and Grover nodded in agreement. They didn't even need to say anything, despite their concerns and everything else. They trusted their friend, they had learned that over time—he would defeat Ares.
The only thing they could do was give their support and defeat the gigantic boar.