Author's Note: I know I have to finish my Rise of the Seasons story, and I will! I'll multitask.

Logical Apollo Holmes: Uh, that is not exactly possible. Well, it is, but you cannot perform both tasks efficiently. Well, unless you are a robot or a quantum computer.

Apollo Holmes: Logic? Please shut up. Anywho. I'm still working on the title for this story, so could you guys just leave some suggestions? Thanks! Quiet, do the disclaimer.

Quiet Apollo Holmes: *Murmuring* I still don't see why we need these. We don't own the characters or anything.

Apollo Holmes: Me, speak up!

Quiet: O-OK. Um, Apollo Holmes doesn't own anything except the plot.

Percy

After this was written down, Carter and Anubis gave me translations for the Egyptian words. So Italics= Egyptian.

I hate corkscrews.

It had been about 2 months after the end of the Giant War with Gaea, and I had been more than happy not to take another End of the World exam. Earlier that day, Piper had the idea that we should go on a double date-we being Annabeth and me, and Jason and Piper. We all agreed it was an excellent idea, so at 5:00 we went out for dinner at this fancy restaurant called Prime that Piper had managed to pay for. I had gotten a roasted chicken and a Coke, Piper had gotten a tropical roll, Annabeth had gotten a fillet mignon, and Jason had gotten Mint tea and roasted chicken. "You like tea? I didn't know that." Said Piper during dinner, looking surprised. "I never told you? Huh. I thought I did. Oh well. Yeah, I like tea. My favorite's Peach." Said Jason. "Nice to know for Valentine's Day." Said Piper. "Pipes, I told you that you don't have to get me anything!" Groaned Jason. I laughed and put a hand on my friend's shoulder.

"Jason, with women, you just learn to go along with whatever they say." I said. Annabeth hit me on the head playfully, smiling. "Hey!" I said in protest. "What? I didn't do anything wrong." Said Annabeth with a smirk. Jason and Piper started laughing. "It's not funny." I playfully pouted. "Dessert?" Asked the waiter. "Uh, sure. I'll have a crème brûlée." I said. "I'll have Kona coffee ice cream." Said Annabeth. "Chocolate raspberry fondue, please." Said Jason politely. "I'll have a… crispy pineapple." Said Piper. "OK." Said the waiter and started to leave. I saw Jason's eyes widen. "Actually, could we have those to go? Leave them on the doorstep." Asked Jason, steel in his voice. I knew that voice. He used it whenever monsters were around. I turned around to see what Jason was looking at and my eyes widened in shock. Outside was a bunch of flying corkscrew things. "Of course, sir." Said the waiter and left. "Let's go." Said Piper and grabbed Katroptris.

It turned out that a group of people was already fighting the corkscrew things. They had odd weapons; one had penguins with him. We got closer to the fight and saw that there were 5 people there- The boy with penguins, a girl who was controlling the Earth, which put me on guard, a boy who could control the dead- a son of Hades/ Pluto maybe?, a girl with blond hair with a staff, and-was that Carter? I remembered the younger boy with the oddly bent sword who could make a giant glowing fist. I remember thinking that he certainly was not Greek. "Shouldn't we help them?" Asked Piper, seeing as there was a squadron of the corkscrews that seemed to pop out of nowhere. "Oh, right." I said, shaking my head. "Let's go!" Annabeth got out her dagger and invisible hat, which had started working again, while Jason flew into the sky and hit the monsters with lightning, with varying degrees of success.

Piper hit the monsters on the ground. I saw the girl controlling the Earth was throwing rocks at one of the corkscrews, making it fly at me. I made a nearby water fountain burst and smashed the monster into the ground, turning it to sand. I coughed, the sand flying into my lungs. "That's just perfect." I said. I saw the boy with the penguins say something that sounded like 'Shish-kebab'. A corkscrew-head froze and the boy grabbed a basketball from a nearby court and threw it at the monster. I saw a giant glowing fist hit another and knew that Carter had done that. A corkscrew-head came at me, screaming "Die!"How could something with a corkscrew for a head even talk? It came at me too fast to react. It would have sliced my arm off had I not remembered to not just stand there and act like an idiot. As it was, it just grazed me. Pain pulsed throughout my arm. It must've been poisoned. I thought. Water from the ground that defeated the last monster I turned into a trident and stabbed the monster with it, disintegrating it. It seemed that the battle was over, because Annabeth, Jason, and Piper came to see me. Jason flew over quickly to get the desserts and rounded back to me.

"You OK, Perce?" Asked Jason, looking at my arm wound. At the moment, blood was coming out of the wound quickly. "Yeah. Minor scratch." I said, wincing as Annabeth lifted my arm up. "Ow." I said. "Percy? Is that you?" Asked a familiar voice. "Cart-Can I say your name now?" I asked, wanting to call him something. "Yeah." Said Carter. "OK. Hey, Carter! How've you been?" I asked. The hieroglyph on my hand glowed. Carter held his hand in pain. "You OK?" Asked the Earth girl. "Yeah. I'm OK. It's just a little sting." Said Carter, hiding his hand from view. "I'm doing well. That looks bad." Said Carter. "Hey Sadie." Said Annabeth to the blonde girl. "Annabeth, how've you been?" Asked the blonde girl. She had a British accent. "This is the girl who you said I sound like?" Asked Carter. "Yeah." The boy who controlled the dead glared at us and growled-he actually sounded like a wolf. "Greeks and a Roman. This will be pleasant. I'm sure one of them will be trying to tear us apart soon enough." Said the boy with a harsh laugh. He looked like an older Nico. I tried to understand what the older boy said, but could not. The others with him even looked like they were struggling trying to translate the words. I guessed that they were not nice. "Can we know your names?" I asked.

"I don't know, son of Poseidon. Identities can be dangerous." Said the Older Nico. I was shocked. How did he know that I was a son of Poseidon? "Fine, I'll go first. I am Percy Jackson, this is Annabeth Chase, my girlfriend, and these two are Jason Grace and Piper McLean." I said. "OK. I'm Carter, as you guys already know, this is my sister Sadie, Alyssa, Felix, and the Jackal guy's name is –"Said Carter, who turned to look at Jackal-boy. He was still glaring at me. What had I ever done to him? "Andrew. My name's Andrew." The boy said coldly. I doubted that was his real name. "So, Andrew said that you're a son of Poseidon? Isn't he a Greek god? Why did he call you a Roman? What are you people, children of the Greek gods? Andrew, what did you say earlier? Why are you here?" Asked Carter in rapid-fire speed. Jason snapped his fingers and Carter jumped, probably by being shocked by Jason. "Yes, yes, I'm a son of Jupiter, Percy, Annabeth, and Pipes are Greek, I'm Roman, I don't know, and we were having dinner." Said Jason in the same rapid-fire motion, sighing at the end, as if he had to do that a lot. With Leo, he probably did. Carter blinked, looking impressed. "Wow."

"We should probably get that cleaned up. Would you guys like to come back with us? We have a great healer, she's really nice, we have Sahlab and I think Cleo's baking something for us." Said the boy with the penguins, Felix, somehow faster than Carter did. I then realized that he was only nine. He looked too young to be on the battlefield. "OK. I trusted you with the petsuchos, I'll trust you now." I said to Carter, smiling. "Come on, Seaweed Brain." Said Annabeth. Sadie set something, what looked like a stone sphinx, on the ground. She held out her hand and a swirling vortex made of sand appeared. She jumped through it, grabbing Annabeth's hand and dragging her in, too. Carter smiled and grabbed my hand, pulling me in. I closed my eyes. I felt something make a 'thud' sound. I opened my eyes and saw that I was in what looked like a mansion. I saw Jason come out with Andrew. Alyssa came out with Piper and Felix came out alone. The sandy vortex closed. I noticed that my friends were covered in sand. "So, let's get that fixed up." Said Felix.

The younger boy led us to a room that looked sort of like a high school science lab. Sitting on a chair next to a boy with a cast on his arm was a girl with blonde hair. She muttered a word under her breath and the boy looked better. "You can go now, Sean. Just make sure that if you're reading while walking, you'll be more careful of if there are weapons of the ground, OK?" Said the blonde girl with kindness in her voice, smiling at Sean. "I know, Jaz. Thanks for the help!" Said the boy with an Irish accent. "Stay safe." Said Jaz. The boy, Sean, walked away, reading a book that he must have had in his other hand. "Oh, hey Sadie. Who's this?" Asked Jaz, a smile still on her face. "This is Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase- remember the girl who I told you about? This is Jason-sorry, what's your last names?-Grace and Piper McLean." Said Sadie. "OK. So what's the problem? Oh, where are my manners. I've forgotten introductions. I'm Jaz Anderson." Said the blonde girl. "Percy got hit by a corkscrew demon." Chimed in Felix happily. "Oh, that'll be easy." Said Jaz as she walked over to our group. I showed her my arm.

"That looks poisoned." Said Jaz, looking sympathetic. She muttered something under her breath and the cut closed up. "Hmm." Said Jaz. "What does that mean?" Asked Alyssa. "It means that I can't completely heal it. It was poisoned by the demon. Someone must've known that Percy would've been there and put poison on the demons' heads. If that's the case, then I'll need to heal all of you." Said Jaz. "OK. Then we have the problem of who would do that. It doesn't narrow it down at all that we have many enemies." Said Piper. Jason still had a look of distrust in his eyes. I heard an explosion. I saw a girl with black hair and amber eyes say "Carter! There's been an explosion downstairs." Said the girl. "OK. Zia, tell the initiates we'll be down there in a minute or so." Said the black-haired boy. "Jaz, try to get the poison out of Percy's system. Everyone else, come with me." About ten minutes later, Carter came back with Andrew, Annabeth, Jason, and Piper. "Poison out of your system yet?" Asked Annabeth, a worried look on her face. "Most of it. Jaz says that the rest will have to work its way out." I said. Like a splinter, I thought. "What's the news?" I asked, seeing the look of worry on Carter's face. "Well, we don't know what caused the explosion, but whatever it was trapped us in here. It's a magical barrier. It can't be pulled down by physical means, and it's too powerful for Sadie or I to tear it down. Even Anu-Andrew couldn't tear it down. It's the work of a really powerful god." Said Carter, the last part to himself. I almost smiled at Carter's slipup of 'Andrew's name. I was right, then. It wasn't his real name. "Well, while we're trapped here, why don't we get to know each other better?" Asked Annabeth, smiling.