The Rise of Darkness

by Th3OneAndOnly

What happens when your fate is finally catching up to you? A child of a peculiar Greek god and his friends go on a journey to save the voice of the oracle of Delphi. Primordial gods surfacing doesn't make their quest any easier, and our hero must prove himself not only to his friends but to his father.

The Rise

Of Darkness

By: TheOneAndOnly

Based off of the Percy Jackson series and the Heroes of Olympus series by: Rick Riordan

I

Cody

I lived nearly 16 years of my life thinking I was a normal kid. I lived with my normal family like any other normal kid. I went to a normal school with normal students and normal teachers. I thought life was good (and normal). Boy was I wrong.

My whole life changed in the last week of my sophomore year of high school, when my biology teacher, Mr. Binns, brought frogs in to dissect. Some of the kids in my class seemed excited; others seemed a bit freaked out. I wasn't really fond of frogs. A few years back my little brother Anthony, got one as a pet. Somehow it would always escape from the tank, and one day I woke up with it sitting on my face.

Mr. Binns handed out some worksheets that we had to fill out. We had to document their height, length, weight, and eating habits. My partner Hayden and I got a big fat, evil looking frog. It had beady red eyes and reminded me of a kid in my algebra class named Jay.

We checked its weight and length and then tried to cut it open to see what it used to eat, but our scalpel wasn't even scratching it. I assumed it was dull so I grabbed a fresh one out of the bin at the front of the classroom. I was about to start slicing again when the frog reared up and snatched the scalpel right out of my hand, devouring it.

"What the hell?"

"What's wrong?" Hayden asked

"It just ate the scalpel, the thing is still alive."

"Good one," Hayden snorted. "Now hurry up, you were supposed to get another scalpel." I don't know what I saw but I didn't like it. My counselor said I was dyslexic, but that doesn't mean I get hallucinations.

"That's it for today class," Mr. Binns spoke up. He began rambling on, and asking student about their results.

I looked out the window and saw my reflection looking back. I was a skinny kid, with dark brown hair and matching eyes.

"Well, did any of you get into the stomach and see what the frog used to eat?" Mr. Binns asked.

Hayden raised his hand and said

"Yeah, apparently ours is alive and it ate Cody's scalpel," some kids started laughing.

"I see," Mr. Binns said "Well next time you want to mess around in class Cody, you can stay behind and clean up all of your classmates frog remains."

"Sorry Mr. Binns, won't happen again." A couple guys at the table next to us looked like they were about to explode with laughter. I looked down at my shoes embarrassed. Mr. Binns went back to the lesson and rattled on, describing the easiest way to remove the guts from the frog. For a second I thought the frog was growing even larger. I shook my head, that's stupid, I thought. Then the container it was in popped open and a frog the size of a midsized dog was sitting on my desk. Mr. Binns stopped speaking abruptly and said,

"What is wrong with that frog!" everyone looked in my direction. The frog grew to the size of a bear and looked like one too. It grew hair and changed shape. It kept on growing. It roared and was now the size of a pickup truck. Everyone screamed and ran for the exit, I heard someone yell,

"Lion!" Lion? I thought. This was no lion. It was a very large, very angry, giant dog. It glared at me with evil red eyes and roared. It sounded as if an engine of a Ferrari had just started, only ten times louder. I grabbed a random bottle of chemicals off the counter and threw it at the monster, but that only made it angrier. It roared again and trampled after me. I ran as fast as I could to get to the door and swung it open. I ran down the hall and grabbed a pair of safety scissors off the ground. I didn't know what good it would do but I just felt like it would help. I kept running. I slammed into a door and fell down inside the lunch room. Then I realized that all these people were in mortal danger. I was about to turn around when I heard an explosion. Too late, I thought. The giant dog bounded into the lunchroom and knocked a table into the air. Kids ran for the exits, throwing their lunch trays over their heads. The monster dog roared again and I thought this was my chance. I threw the scissors straight down its throat. It coughed and shook its head. Of course, it wasn't enough. It glared at me with those terrifying red eyes. All of the students who were trapped in the cafeteria backed up into the corner. Luckily, (for the normal kids) it didn't seem interested in them. Not so good for me. Then a really stupid idea popped into my head. I ran straight at the beast. When I got close, I slid baseball style under the monster. I got about half way under it, and then crawled as quickly as I could and sprinted to the door. I didn't know where I was running or what I was going to do. I ended up stumbling on to the baseball field in the back of the school. But I hadn't lost the monster dog. It ran at me at a high speed and my only defense was myself and a baseball bat I had just picked up from the dugout. I got ready to swing. I remembered when I was little and my dad had taught me how to play baseball. Every time I missed the ball when I swung, he would just laugh and say,

"Keep your eye on the ball." As the monster came close I took a small stride and put all of my strength into a single swing. Bat connected with bone. The blow completely shattered its entire front row of teeth. It probably would have been a home run if I was in the batter's box. While it howled angrily I swung the bat at the things massive ribcage. CRACK! I swung again. CRACK! And again, CRACK! I kept swinging. I took one last strong swing, and the giant monster dog disintegrated into a pile of dust. I then fell to my knees exhausted. I had gotten such an adrenaline rush that I hadn't realized how tired I was. I took one last look at the pile of dust, and blacked out.

II

Cody

I woke up in an itchy green cot. I was in a dusty room in some random house. There was a nightstand next to me with a glass cup. It had some sort of brown liquid in it. It didn't look very appetizing but my mouth was dry and I didn't see anything else to drink. I sat up and put the pink bendy straw to my lips, expecting to taste a chunky protein shake. It tasted nothing like that. It tasted just like my mother's fresh baked cinnamon rolls, strange since it was liquid. Before I knew it I had drained the whole glass and was still sucking on the straw lost in thought. A pretty girl, with long curly dark brown hair walked in, she looked about my age.

"Oh, um… Chiron, he's awake" she said. She walked over to me and took my glass away. When she stood over me, I noticed she wore a leather necklace. Two strange beads hung from the center. As she left, an older middle aged man, rolled in the room in a motorized wheel chair. I felt like I knew the man but I've never seen him in my life. I had never met a Chiron, but his name reminded me of the Greek myths we learned about in history class. He smiled at me and then said,

"I am afraid we have much to discuss."

"Do you mean like the giant dog at my school?" I asked.

"Yes, child" he replied.

"What was that thing?" I asked, "And why did it keep trying to kill me?"He sighed like I should already know the answer.

"Have you ever learned about the Greek myths?"He asked.

"Yeah" I said, "like Zeus and Hera and—"

"Yes" he cut me off. "These Greek gods controlled different forms of nature like lightning, farming, and death. It gave the people of ancient Greece a better understanding of nature itself."

"And what's your point" I asked, "are you gonna tell me that the Greek gods actually exist and are now here in the U.S.?"

"That's exactly what I was going to tell you." Chiron said.

"Oh…" I said, "Well that pretty much sums everything up." This whole idea seemed funny to me.

"So prove it, wasn't Chiron that horse dude?"

"Yes I am the horse dude." He sighed and began to rise out of the wheel chair. He got taller and taller until he was too tall for a man. The wheelchair must have been magic because there's no way he could have fit in there. From the waist up he was a normal man. But from the waist down, he was a white stallion.

"I prefer Centaur," He said. I was too stunned to speak.

"How about we go outside for a walk" Chiron said. I nodded and followed him out the door. I listened as he gave me a tour of this strange place we were at. It was called, Camp Half-Blood, just outside of New York City. (I was just in Illinois when I killed the monster dog.)

"What was that thing that attacked me?" I asked.

"That," he said "Was a hell hound."

"But some kid thought it was a lion, and it definitely wasn't a lion."

"Oh but to them it was," he said, handing me a newspaper. The headline read, Escaped zoo lion breaks into local high school. I looked up at him confused.

"The Mist is a very powerful substance; it is a mystical veil that protects the mortal world from seeing ours. That is why your classmates couldn't see the hell hound for what it was." I decided to stop asking questions. The answers that Chiron gave me just seemed to confuse me even more.

He talked more about monsters and started to explain about demigods. Demigods were kids who were half god, half human which I found hard to believe. He showed me the rock climbing wall which had real lava pouring down the sides, then the cabins. They made a shape in the valley like a Greek omega. He briefly went over quests and then explained how you stay in the cabin of your godly parent.

"Wait so one of my parents is a god?" I asked curiously.

"Of course, how else would you have survived drinking the nectar?" Chiron said. We finished the tour by a huge pine tree. A dragon was curled around its base. The Golden Fleece hung on its lowest branch. The Athena Parthenon stood like a skyscraper, towering over the trees. I had so many questions for Chiron, but just as I was about to start, a horn blew in the distance.

"Ah, it's time for dinner." Chiron said. We walked back through the camp. Kids of all ages had lined up outside of their cabins. We followed them to the dining pavilion. When we arrived Chiron led me over to a packed table, and introduced me.

"This is Cody… hm, I suppose we don't know your last name." I was about to tell him my last name was… wait, that's funny. I couldn't remember. I didn't know if the day's events just overwhelmed me or what. But it was scary. Chiron continued "-he is undetermined for now, and will be staying with your cabin." Some kids groaned, like it was a bad thing, others looked at each other with a crazy look in their eyes. They all had the same features, like they were all siblings. I sat down on the packed bench with half my butt hanging off. Chiron started to speak and the whole room went silent. He made a couple of announcements about chariot races and games of capture the flag. After he finished speaking a bunch of girls walked around with platters of food. They were all sorts of colors (the girls I mean, not the food), some were the color of tree bark, and others had twigs or branches growing out of them. It was the weirdest thing I'd ever seen. But all the other kids acted like it was completely normal. Before I knew it there were mounds of food in front of me. Steak, brisket, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and all the food you could think of. The kids at my table stood up and started walking to the fire. I followed them trying not to stand out. They all scraped off portions of their food into the fire. The guy in front of me whispered

"Hermes", when he dumped his food. Then I was up. I muttered something like,

"To the gods" I caught a whiff of the smell, and it was so great that I couldn't even explain it. The smell seemed to calm me down. I felt less confused. The questions in my head seemed less important. I ate my dinner, laughing with the other kids at the Hermes table. I drank out of a cup that filled itself with whatever drink I wanted. I was having a good time. Before I knew it we were walking down to the campfire. It changed colors like it could tell we were in a good mood. We sang songs, and ate smores. Somehow I felt like I knew the words to the songs and I was just singing along like everyone else. We were half way through the song "grandma gets dressed for war" when the kids leading the sing along stopped abruptly. The campers stopped too. Laughter died out, everyone was silent, staring at me. I looked up and saw a glowing red light. There was a faint image of an aged club and a big lion above my head. Everyone seemed stunned, even Chiron.

"Hail Cody, Son of Hercules," he said. "God of strength, athletes, gatekeeper of Olympus."

III

Cody

The campers whispered to each other,

"Hercules… there's no way… just look at him, how is that a son of Hercules." Once again, I was a freak. Chiron quickly pulled me up by my shoulder, and scooted me along. None of this made sense. "I've lived with my dad all my life, and you said that gods aren't supposed to interact with their children?"

"Cody" he said "this may be hard to understand, but that man you have lived with is not your real father." My mouth was completely dry.

"Cody, is there any part of your life you cannot remember?"

"Well," I said dryly "to be honest, everything has been fuzzy before I was seven."

"Of course that is why this has happened."

"What do you mean?"

"I remember, long ago Zeus warned me about a child of Hercules. Your father, your godly father Hercules, lived with you for seven years as a father. In doing so, he brought a horrible fate upon you, so he was forced to wipe your memory under the river Lethe, and send you away hoping for the best."

"But it didn't work" I said.

"Indeed. Hold on to your memories Cody, they may slip away. It's possible that you will never be able to recall what happened before you were brought to camp." I nodded. Then he switched topics and said,

"There is not yet a cabin built for Hercules, until then, you will be staying in the big house." I just nodded again.

"Did you know who I was when I first got here?"

"I had my suspicions," Chiron said. "Oh, I had almost forgotten, your father left this in my possession to give to you, just in case you ever arrived here." Chiron pulled out a normal white die. He handed it to me.

"Gee, thanks" I said glumly.

"You will find out how to use it soon enough"

As I got to my room in the big house, I laid awake in the cot thinking. My father wasn't my father; my mother wasn't my mother, I didn't even have a brother. They were all just part of this stuff called the mist. I thought about my old high school life. Some of it had to be real, I hoped. The memories, the people, it was all wrong. It was after midnight when I finally fell asleep.

After breakfast that morning, I started taking lessons which I would be doing every day. I had archery first, which I was okay at. It seemed that learning of my new parentage gave me abilities I didn't know I had. I had new found strength and snapped three bows in half before I could get used to my new ability. There was hand to hand combat, which I was pretty good at, thanks to my strength. And I tried my best when I took lessons on the ancient Greek stories.

Every day in my free time I tried to figure out how the die worked. I rolled it around and tried to find openings on it. I didn't figure it out until nearly a week after I arrived. I had gotten so frustrated that I threw it at the trunk of a tree. It bounced off of it flying in another direction. When it landed I heard a heavy thud, which couldn't have come from a die. I looked in its direction, and where it had landed lay a wickedly sharp double edged sword. I quickly snatched it out of the dirt, amazed that this could have once been a regular six sided die.

"That's cool" someone's voice said. I turned around. Sitting on a rock was the same girl who I saw in the big house on my first day.

"Uh… Thanks" I said.

"I'm Kat, Kat Williams" She said, getting up to shake my hand.

"I'm Cody" I said.

I realized I was still holding up the sword. I lowered it.

"If a die has six sides, do you think there's a different weapon for each side?" she asked.

I shrugged and through the sword in the air. It landed in my hand as a die. This time I simply rolled the die and it landed on the number 6. In an instant, I was holding two short twin swords. Each about 2 feet long.

"Whoa!" I said.

"Yeah, pretty cool" she said, like she's seen stuff like it every day. She looked bored so I tried small talk,

"So…" I said. "Who's your godly parent?"

"My mother is Demeter" she said defiantly.

"Goddess of agriculture, right?" I asked.

"Yeah," she said in a bored tone. I noticed the grass around her seemed to be a bit greener. And flowers would pop up every now and then.

"So what were you doing in the Big House the other day?" I asked. She sighed and said

"I got in trouble, so I had to help take care of you."

"What could you have done that was so bad?" I laughed.

"The Hermes cabin pulled a prank like they always do, so I made their entire cabin turn into a garden of poison ivy." I stared at her. Wow, this girl was dangerous. I've noticed a lot of the kids around camp were like that. A horn broke the silence,

"Oh, it's time for lunch," She said. We walked to the dining pavilion together, and I considered her a friend. But I had a feeling she sort of resented me. I couldn't blame her.

I ate alone at the newly built Hercules table. It was lonely compared to my old spot with the Hermes guys. I looked around at the other tables seeing kids talking and laughing with their brothers and sisters. There were a couple of other kids who sat alone, but they definitely didn't look as lost as I did.

That afternoon, I had my first sword fighting lesson in the arena. I made sure my die landed on 1, the first sword that came out of the die. I'd go find out what the other sides are later. I was going to be sword fighting with the Ares cabin since I had nobody else in my cabin. Everyone told me not to, but I'm sure I could handle it. The guy who seemed to be teaching didn't look anything like the Ares kids, who were all big, buff, and just as thick headed. He seemed to be about 17. He had black hair and sea green eyes. He wasn't as tough looking, but I could tell no one would want to pick a fight with him.

"Alright guys," he said "We're going to be playing a little game of king of the ring." The Ares kids cheered. "But first, I want to introduce someone. This is Cody" he pointed at me. "He's going to be sparring with us," He turned toward me and said, "I'm Percy Jackson, and this is the Ares cabin." He waved his hand toward them. The Ares kids roared and yelled stuff about fresh meat.

"Alright, get in line from shortest to tallest." Percy said. I was the shortest, which means, I was the first match.

"Remember, as long as you keep winning, you continue moving on to the next person in line."

The kid I would be fighting was at least a head taller than me. He looked like a pig, with beady eyes and fat cheeks.

"You're going down real easy" he said in a deep voice.

"Right," I said sarcastically. We got in our positions.

"Ready?" Percy said. We both nodded.

"Fight!" He attacked first; I deflected his blow which would have cut me in half from the collar bone. The sword rang and sent vibrations up my arm. He kept swinging, and I kept barely blocking. I thought I was going to be shish-ki –bobbed, but I remembered my new strength. It gave me confidence. The moves started coming naturally to me. I was rolling out of the way and hitting him in the head with the flat of my blade. I was countering each of his attacks with one of my own. After a while I got bored. It felt too easy. I rolled again, and this time I swung my sword around sweeping his legs and knocking him down. I stood and pointed the tip of my sword right in front of his nose.

"Well, I think we know who won that one." Percy announced. All of the Ares kids looked stunned. Their mouths hung open and their eyes were wide. I looked down at the kid I had just beaten, he was drenched in sweat. I wasn't even breathing heavily. I guessed that was the god of strength thing.

The next few fights were easy. One kid forfeited, the other went down really quick, and some didn't even try. I was having so much fun that I didn't even realize that there was only one person left. "Alright Cody," Percy said "you're at the top of the hill, but you have one last opponent. Meet Clarisse." A big buff girl, who looked like she could tear me in half with her bare hands, stepped forward.

"Cool" I said.

"Watch it kid, don't get thick headed," she said. "I'm no scrub."

Percy didn't even say start yet, but Clarisse attacked. She pushed me hard, and her attacks were amazingly fast. But I stayed confident. I focused on a pattern in her form, and capitalized. I waited for when she would swing her sword downward, and I blocked hard with the side of my sword. The blow deflected and her blade bounced off mine, hitting herself in the face. It hit her so hard she fell backwards onto her butt and was out cold.

"Wow," Percy said. "You just defeated the entire Ares cabin in a game of king of the ring"

"Is that good or bad?" I asked.

"Could be both" he replied. "But that was awesome sword fighting"

"Thanks," I said. A horn blew in the distance.

"Hey, it's time for dinner. Here walk with me" Percy said. When we got out of the Arena, I asked,

"You're not one of Ares' kids are you?"

"No," he said. "My dad is Poseidon."

"Wow" I said. "God of the seas, right? Can you breathe under water?"

"Yeah"

"That is so cool!"

"What's cool," Percy said, "is that you can go through hours of sword training, and not break a sweat"

"Yeah that is kind of cool" I said.

I ate another lonely meal at the Hercules table. But this time I didn't feel as bad. I saw Percy eating alone at his table. I looked around and saw Kat sitting at the Demeter table with her siblings. Her brothers and sisters talked and laughed, but she didn't seem to listen to a word they were saying. After we all had finished eating, we marched down to the campfire. I didn't realize it at first, but I had sat down right next to Kat. Across from me, Percy had his arm around a blonde girl, she had been my instructor in hand to hand combat, but I forgot her name. We started the sing along and Kat introduced me to some of her friends. A girl named Nyssa, who was a daughter of Hephaestus. A guy named Dean, who I knew from the Hermes cabin. And another younger girl from the Hermes cabin named Trina who was undetermined. None of them looked at me weird or questioned me like others had. They just looked at me as a friend. I haven't had a real friend at camp yet. But now I don't just have one friend, I have friends, a whole group of them. And I liked it that way. I looked back at Percy and he was pointing at me. He said something to the blonde girl next to him and her face darkened. I wondered what he said that made her so uncomfortable. What's worse is whatever he said, was about me. The Apollo kids finished their last line and everyone cheered. I said goodbye to my new friends and started walking back toward the newly built Hercules cabin, when someone grabbed my shoulder. I turned around. It was the blonde girl Percy had been sitting with.

"We need to talk," she said in an urgent voice.

"Whoa Annabeth," Percy walked up behind her.

"He doesn't even know who you are, give him some room." He said. She sighed and rolled her eyes.

"Okay," she said. "I am Annabeth, daughter of Athena, and we need to talk." I was about to say Chiron told me that Athena was an eternal maiden, when I realized she meant business.

"About what?" I asked.

"About how you got here, you need to tell me everything" She said hastily.

"Oh… Okay. Well it really started the other day at my school with the hell hound" I said. I continued telling her everything that had happened up until when I arrived. I didn't leave out the fact that my dad had cursed me, and how I was losing my memories of my mortal life.

"Hmm, the monster attacks are normal. But the memory thing is a problem. You should talk to Percy or Jason; they have experience with losing their memories."

"Okay but why did you need me to tell you all of that?"

"A friend of mine Rachel, said something about a new demigod, one in particular that would be important in the future" She said.

"And you think it's me?" I asked.

"You fit the description she gave me," she shrugged. "Be ready for anything."

I walked back to my new cabin a little frightened. Just when I was just settling in again, somebody had to remind me that I'm even less normal than the not normal kids. I got to my cabin and spread out onto the bed.

I lay awake most of the night, thinking about what Annabeth had told me. Be ready for anything. Eventually, I got too tired and I fell asleep.

I dreamt of camp half blood burning. There were dead bodies littered over the valley. But there was one man. His skin was pitch black. There were stars and constellations all over his body. I immediately knew he was an enemy. I rolled my die into my hand, but nothing happened. The man's form seemed to shimmer as he walked toward me.

"Are you afraid, little hero?" he said in a cold voice. I couldn't speak. Fear overcame me.

"You annoying little pests have destroyed my wife, and my sons. Well, I thank you for destroying Kronos. I'm not too fond of him. Anyway, I will avenge my wife, and destroy you little thieves once and for all. My sons have failed, my wife has failed, but I, will not fail. You cannot defeat me. I doubt you can even defeat Erebus" The words cut into me like knives. The scenes of camp half blood were too horrifying. I found myself sitting up in bed sweaty and scared. I stood up shakily and pulled random clothes on. I left my cabin and decided to take a walk.

It was about seven o' clock in the morning. I walked past cabin five. Which I'm guessing was the Ares cabin. There were paint splattered walls, and a big stuffed boars head hung over the door frame. One of the campers sat in front of the cabin sharpening a knife. He gave me an evil stare and I kept walking. I walked along the beach for a while, and then back up toward the valley. When I walked past a tall tree, something hard hit me in the back of the head.

"Ouch!" I said even though it had not hurt that badly. I looked up at where the acorn had come from. Kat was sitting on one of the branches.

"Oh, sorry" she said, not sounding sorry. "I wasn't aiming for your head." I hopped up into the tree and pulled myself onto the branch she was on.

"What are you doing up here?" I asked. She just shrugged.

"So, um… I had this dream last night and –"

"I had the same one" she said.

"Seriously?" I said "The one with the big black dude?"

"Really?" she said with a smile.

"Whoa, I didn't mean it like that!" my cheeks started turning red.

"Whatever," she said.

"So you did see it, right?"

"Yes" she said. "So did Dean"

"That's weird, so do you think we need to get one of those quest thingies?"

"I don't know, you can't just get a quest." She said glumly. "I've been trying for months."

I nodded and asked "So who was that guy?"

"Based on everything he said, he's got to be Ouranos." She replied.

"He mentioned another guy too," I started.

"Yeah, he said something about Erebus" she mumbled.

"Isn't he the god of love or something?" I asked.

"Of course not!" she said, like I should know this stuff. "That's Eros; Erebus is the god of darkness"

"Oh" I said embarrassed by my obvious lack of knowledge in Greek mythology. "Well we should at least tell Chiron about the dream and maybe we'll get a quest." She just snorted.

"C'mon hero it's time for breakfast" she said. She hopped down from the branch and I followed.

IV

Kat

Something just didn't seem right to me about that guy. For some reason I felt that he was the key for me finally getting a quest. I sat back down at my table after scooping my portion into the fire. But everything about him was wrong.

For starters, he was a son of Hercules. I knew a lot of people that really didn't like that god. He gave a bad rep to practically every demigod in existence. I followed Cody and Chiron the night he was claimed, and I overheard their conversation. Hercules had basically screwed Cody from birth, what kind of fate could he have brought him? Then there was Cody in general. His father was Hercules but he was probably the most un-Herculesish kid I've ever seen. He was a bit taller than me but you'd think he would be over six feet and look like a body builder. He was just so skinny. I mean he was muscular, (not saying that I looked at him like that) but not big.

I looked at him a few tables down. I heard stories about how Hercules had fought and killed some of the worst monsters with nothing but his brute strength. I almost laughed thinking of Cody wrestling the Nemian Lion to the ground. But he had the dream. The same dream that I had. Even if the oracle was gone, somehow they were still being guided toward the same goal.

My brothers and sisters laughed hysterically at a joke that Katie Gardner had just told. I wasn't paying attention to them. I didn't talk to them as much as I did Nyssa, Dean, and Trina. They were too into plants. Some of them would probably rather tend to their garden then be out there on a quest. I looked back at Cody. He was still alone, but the girls at the Aphrodite table behind us had started giggling loudly, they were all looking in Cody's direction. I usually didn't eavesdrop,(Who am I kidding, I always do) but I had a hunch on what they were talking about. A blonde girl said,

"Oh my gods, he is so hot. Melissa, you should ask him to sit with us." Another girl with bleach blonde hair whirled around saying,

"Are you kidding? I'd probably faint if I even got that close. Ask Drew to do it, you know she has a way with words."

Drew was by far one of the worst Aphrodite girls I've ever met. She was gorgeous, but used her beauty in the worst of ways. She loved getting into relationships with guys and then breaking their hearts. Worst of all she could charm speak, which makes her even more dangerous. She could make guys do really stupid and embarrassing things just by talking to them. I couldn't let her do that to Cody. He was still new, and he'd been friendly. I looked around for Piper, the head counselor for the Aphrodite cabin. But she was nowhere in sight. Piper McLean was one of the few nice girls in the Aphrodite cabin, usually she was around to stop Drew from screwing up people's lives. I couldn't believe that I did it but I found myself walking over to the Aphrodite table. No one really looked, moving to different tables was a lot more common now a days. The giggling stopped the moment I walked up to the table.

"What do you want?" Drew looked at me with a forced half smile.

"Oh I couldn't help but over hear you, but I heard he only likes brunettes." It was a total lie. I knew nothing about what Cody liked, but they totally bought it. Every one of them was blonde or either had some sort of highlight. A couple of them rifled through a catalog, probably looking for prices on hair dye. I crushed their dreams by adding in,

"But only natural brunettes," I walked away smiling. No more giggling came from their table. Back off, I thought. Cody's not for sale. Whoa, I had no Idea where that came from. I was just protecting him, but now… I feel different.

V

Cody

After another boring meal, I met Kat and Dean outside the dining pavilion.

"Cody's right," Dean said. "It's worth a shot."

"Do you really believe that?" Kat asked. "He's just going to shut us down, he doesn't want to have to assign another quest, after what happened with the last one."

"Well we're gonna try anyway," I said, already making my way toward the big house. Dean started following me, but Kat was trying to pull us away.

"I thought you wanted to get a quest. Remember you told me I've been trying for months. You're acting like you don't want to go" I told Kat.

"No I want to go… but I've been told no so many times."

"But this time we have a reason to be out there, all three of us had the same dream, and that has to be enough," I said.

"Enough for what?" A voice said behind us. Kat jumped, Chiron was standing right behind us.

"Chiron," Dean said. "We think we need a quest." Chiron looked stern, but invited us into the big house to share our reasoning. We told him about the details of our dream, and what we believed it meant. After we were done speaking he just sighed and said,

"After all we have done their will never be peace or quiet, yes you are correct, there must be a quest called immediately."

"Wait" Dean said, "us three are actually going on a quest?"

"Only if you accept it, and it was only you three who saw the dream as I understand," Chiron replied. We looked around at each other stunned that this actually worked.

"We're in" I said with a smile forming on my face. Chiron didn't look happy about the quest but he moved on and said,

"There is only one problem; the voice of the Oracle has been extinguished. Something is wrong at Delphi."

"What's the Oracle?" I asked, immediately feeling I asked a dumb question.

"The Oracle is the person the spirit of Delphi takes over" Kat said hastily. "They can speak prophecies and tell the future."

"Oh," I said.

"Kat is correct," Chiron said. "Our Oracle is not even here, she has gone with some friends to try to put the sibylline books back together. So your quest will be even more dangerous, there are no words to guide you."

"Chiron," Dean said. "We still have to do this"

"I thought so," said Chiron. "In that case, your only option is to go to Delphi and fix whatever is wrong then the oracle will be able to speak."

"Great" Kat said, "We're definitely in" Chiron still didn't look happy but he nodded and said,

"You will leave tomorrow morning, but know this. Just because you don't have a deadline, doesn't mean you can take this matter lightly." We nodded and walked back toward the cabins.

"I can't believe that worked" Dean said.

"I know, he definitely did not want to send us." I said.

"Well," Kat said "I just can't wait to get back out into the real world." We stopped at my cabin. I thought they were going to keep going but they came inside the cabin to check it out.

"Dude!" Dean said, "You have entire boxes of weapons in here!"

"I do?" I asked stupidly.

"Yeah, can I have one?"

"Sure, take whatever you want" I said. He started rummaging through the boxes.

"Wow your cabin is nice" Kat said.

"Well I'm the only one in it, so it's not really dirty." I said.

"Are you saying that our cabins are dirty?" Kat asked.

"No, it's just that—"

"Of course he is," Dean said with his head still in the box. "My cabin is disgusting,"

"Dean I meant—" Kat started.

"Cool!" Dean said. "I'm taking this; they have one of these at the Athena cabin." He lifted up a shotgun in one hand and boxes of celestial bronze shells in the other.

"We should probably leave before Dean starts to test it" Kat said. "See ya later Cody" They left the cabin together. Dean also slipped a celestial bronze knife. I realized that I had never really looked around my cabin. It wasn't bad. But I could tell it was built rather hastily because of the crooked posters of body builders on the walls. I tore most of them down. My bed spread seemed to be made of lion fur. I also had a magic weight set. Most of the weights were a lot heavier than you would find in your average gym. Some of the plates weighed nearly three hundred pounds alone. I sighed and walked out of the cabin toward the sword arena, where I will be doing hand to hand combat. Not many campers do it. Fighting with your hands is usually a last resort. But today five more campers than normal showed up. I was surprised to see Kat, Trina, Nyssa, Dean, and a guy named Jason. The instructor was Annabeth. The other day I saw her judo flip Percy near the volleyball pit. She definitely could be scary sometimes. Anyway, Annabeth had brought a first aid kit, and some Ambrosia and Nectar which probably meant we would be fighting. Annabeth told us that we would be playing king of the ring. (What is it with them and this game?) She split the class in two and lined us up. This time, I wasn't the shortest. Trina was the shortest who had to fight Kat who was just a little bit shorter than I was.

Kat was a lot better than Trina. Even though it was her first class, she was able to hit all sorts of moves. The match ended when Trina tripped and broke her nose.

Annabeth fed Trina some Ambrosia and Nectar. She started to look a bit better. Then she quickly went over the results of the fight, and how Trina could have countered differently.

"All right next fight Kat and Cody" She said. I stepped forward.

"Hey, I don't really want to hurt a girl" I told Kat.

"Well I'm going to hurt you so you're not going to want to hold back." Kat said. I sighed and just decided to go with it.

"Fight!" Annabeth said. She charged. I hit the flip Annabeth had had us practicing all week. When she was about a foot away, I turned around grabbed her by the wrist and shoulder and threw her over my own shoulder a little harder then I meant to.

"Ow" She wheezed. "Oh the ribs, definitely ribs"

"Sorry," I said. I really did not mean to hurt her. She was wide open. Annabeth pulled her to the side and started wrapping her ribs and feeding her Ambrosia and nectar. My next two fights were easy. Nyssa punched me a few times but it was like I didn't even feel them. I swept her legs out from under her and she was done. Dean was easy too. He tried to kick, but his movements were slow and easy to dodge. Jason, I recently found out from Dean, after I knocked one of his teeth out, was a child of Zeus. That was a problem. He was probably just as good as Percy. We stepped into the center of the ring and got into position.

"Fight" Annabeth said. This time I attacked first. He took a swing at me but I ducked under the blow and came up behind him. There was a lot of throwing, and missed punches. But I could outlast Jason with my new abilities. He was already sweating. In the corner of my eye I saw Annabeth talking with another girl. I wasn't paying attention and Jason swung his arm around, it hit me square in the jaw. There was a sickening crack, as my jaw was forced out of alignment. Some people gasped, Kat put her hand over her mouth. Again, I didn't even feel it. I touched my face where there was an unusual bump. I pushed hard on it and there was a pop, and my jaw was back in place.

"That's better" I said. Everyone just stared. "Hey I thought we were fighting" I said. Jason stepped in for a kick and I grabbed his leg and threw him over my head. He jumped up at me and out of pure reaction I threw a punch at his face. This time my fist connected with his jaw and there was another crack. It was worse. Jason fell to his knees holding his face in pain. Annabeth helped him up, and an Apollo kid quickly came to help heal him. They all looked at me in amazement.

"Wow" Kat said. "Why didn't you tell me you were good at fighting?"

"I didn't think I was," I replied smiling.

She snorted and said, "Don't flatter yourself, hero."

Jason got up and walked over to me. The one girl I saw talking to Annabeth followed. He shook my hand and the girl said,

"Hi, I'm Piper, and this is—"

"Jason," the guy said. The Apollo guys had already fixed him up.

"Sorry about that," I said.

"Eh, it's okay. It's not as bad as what your dad had me do" Jason said. He

"You've met my dad?" I asked. He nodded. I thought he would tell us he story but he stayed silent. He rubbed his jaw again.

"Yeah sorry, I didn't mean to do that," I apologized.

"It's fine," Piper said. "Jason's had a lot worse."

"Yeah" Kat said. "Remember when you told me about how Jason got run through with a sword?"

"Jason almost died from that one," Piper said. A whole lot worse, I thought. Then I thought of a corny joke.

"Yeah that's definitely a hole lot worse," I said. Kat stifled a laugh, but Jason and Piper looked at each other sadly.

"That's something Leo would have said" Piper said glumly. They looked like they were about to cry. I looked at Kat, and she mouthed tell you later. Kat said a quick goodbye and she walked me away from them. When we were far enough away, I asked,

"Okay, what was that about?"

"About 9 months ago was when the oracle stopped feeling the connection to the spirit of Delphi. Leo went on a quest to find out why and never returned." Kat said.

"Oh, I'm guessing he was their friend?" I asked.

"Yeah," she said.

"Wow, that's tough," I said, "To lose a friend like that." Kat nodded.

"Hey I'm going back to my cabin before lunch, do you want to come with?" Kat asked.

"Sure" I said.

Kat's cabin was number roof had real grass growing on it and there were flowers on the window sills. Other than that, it looked like a normal cabin. We stepped inside.

"Wait," I said. "Chiron told me that there was a rule about how a guy and a girl can't be alone in the same cabin."

"Do you think anyone really follows those rules anymore?" Kat said. I stayed silent.

"I just need to find something" Kat started. She rummaged around under her bunk, finally pulling out an empty journal.

"What's that for?" I asked.

"It's for you," she said. "I have a bad habit of eavesdropping… I heard about what Chiron said about the memory loss. I was thinking you could tell me everything you can remember, and I can write it down, so you would never lose those memories."

I was embarrassed, but grateful. I sat on her bunk, and began telling her everything I could remember about my old life. But I could already tell I was missing some things. I would be doing fine, telling Kat one thing after the next, and she would write it down. But sometimes, I would draw a blank, literally. It was like someone took white out, and just covered up those memories for good. I almost wanted to cry, thinking about it. Pretty soon I wouldn't remember a single one of these events. We finished after Kat had filled about three pages with notes.

"Okay then," I stood up. "Thanks, I think that this'll be a great help— ah ow!" My jaw burned in pain.

"What's wrong?" Kat said. "Oh is that where Jason punched you?" I nodded.

"Here let me see" she said. She pushed my head to the side, and saw my big swollen jaw, it started turning black and blue.

"Oh gods," she said. "Hold on, we have some ice packs in here." She rummaged around the cabin and pulled a blue rectangle out of a mini fridge. She lightly placed it on my bruise.

"Ow, that hurts." I said.

"Hmm, it looks like you're not invincible; you can just tolerate the pain for a while. Good to know." I nodded and said,

"Well it was—" Kat was cut off by a horn blowing in the distance. "Oh never mind."

We walked in silence; something was still awkward between us. I didn't really know what.

I plopped down at my empty table. But it was no longer empty. Percy came over to my table to eat. He also invited another kid who ate at his table alone. He looked about 14. Percy introduced me,

"I'm Nico," the kid said. "Son of Hades." It sort of creped me out that this kid's dad was the lord of the dead. But I was starting to get used to news like this. I noticed that Percy and Nico had already stacked their plates and had begun eating.

"Aren't there rules for—" I started to say.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Percy said. "Chiron understands that it gets boring to eat alone every single day." I definitely knew what he meant. You hear everyone around you talking, and you think of something to say, and there's no one to say it to.

"We just wanted to wish you luck on your quest," Nico said.

"Oh, thanks" I said. "Hey, just a quick question, if it's Ouranos that we're facing, why is he avenging Gaea? Wasn't she the one with the plans to kill him?"

"Ouranos may have not known that Gaea conspired against him," Nico said. "He probably thinks it's all demigod's faults."

"So can we talk him out of trying to kill all of us?" I asked doubtfully.

"Maybe," Percy said as he took a big bite out of his triple cheese burger.

"It is, lunch isn't it?" I asked.

"Yeah," Nico said. "But Percy really, really likes burgers." We laughed and talked more about what I might face on the quest. They taught me a lot about different monsters and what to do if I faced certain monsters like Drakons, Hydras, and all those other bloodthirsty Greek nasties.

The rest of the day went by quick. Sword fighting was the usual. I started training with spears and other weapons as well. Dinner was a bit louder than normal. Word got out about our quest and lots of people stopped by, talking to Kat, Dean, and I. At the campfire, I sat with an even larger group, Kat, Dean, Trina, Jason, Piper, Percy, and Annabeth. We asked Nico to come sit with us but he insisted on standing back in the shadows further away from everyone else.

Dreams didn't come to me that night, but that didn't make me sleep any better. I woke up nearly every ten minutes thinking about the quest.

That morning, the others didn't look like they slept well either. At breakfast I drifted off a few times, Dean's face was embedded in a pile of pancakes, asleep. Every time he exhaled a little bubble appeared in the syrup. Kat didn't look good either. Her hair was messy and she had bags under her eyes. So much for being excited. She drifted off too, and almost fell out of her seat.

We waited at the pine tree for Argus to drive the camp van over. Argus was the head of security at camp. He had eyes all over his body so you could never get away with something around him. I was the only one awake. Soon I heard the sound of a car engine. The van pulled up to the side of the rode at the bottom of the hill. Chiron appeared behind me and said,

"I wish you the best of luck on your quest." He handed me three backpacks filled with ambrosia, nectar, gold drachmas, and mortal money.

"Th- thanks" I said sleepily. I woke up Kat and Dean and we walked down to the van. We waved to Chiron as the van pulled away. I hope I would be able to see camp half- blood again.

Kat slumped over and fell asleep again when we got in the van. Dean stayed awake trying to stuff his shotgun into his newly obtained backpack. Kat's sword lay at her side. I wonder how we would look carrying deadly weapons through New York City. Argus drove us into the down town area. He dropped us at a random street corner, and that was it. We were on our own. Kat's sword shrunk into a pink wristband, which would save us a lot of questioning. We hopped a bus to grand central station, where we would be taking a train to Massachusetts. Then we would get on a plane. Our only option to get to the other side of the world quickly is to fly, and plane tickets in Massachusetts were cheap at the moment. We had a limited amount of money.

We bought our tickets and had to wait nearly two hours until our train finally came. Kat slumped next to me and fell asleep again. No surprise there. She must've gotten even less sleep then I had. Kat's head leaned over onto my shoulder. Then Dean gave me the thumbs up. I scowled at him and shook my head. He laughed and said,

"If you want, you can sleep. When the trains here, I'll wake you up." I nodded and started to close my eyes. I only blinked when Dean shook my shoulder to wake me up.

"Train's gonna be here soon" he said. "Oh and you got to see this picture." Dean pulled out a black digital camera.

"You brought a camera?" I asked.

"Well" he said. "I kind of stole it from the camp store,"

"Right" I said. Kat then woke up. She leaned over to see what we were looking at. Dean pulled up the picture he wanted to show us. It was Kat and I sitting on the bench where we were sleeping. Kat's head was still on my shoulder.

"Oh gods, ew" Kat said. Her cheeks turned red. "Can you delete that?"

"Nope" Dean said. Kat grabbed for it but Dean was too tall for her. Then Dean shoved it deep into his bag and said,

"C'mon lovebirds, the train is here."

For a while we sat on the train in silence. When Dean fell asleep, Kat said,

"I can't believe that we've come this far without a single monster"

"Yeah," I said. "I don't really want to get sidetracked…" Kat pointed toward Dean's bag. I understood. I reached over to his bag and slowly unzipped it. I rummaged for the camera. I pulled it out and turned it on. Then one of Dean's eyes opened.

"You are definitely not a son of Hermes, put it back," he said. I obeyed. Dean went back to sleep, but I knew he would notice if I tried again.

"Oh well" I said.

"Nice going, hero. Now he'll have dirt on me forever," Kat said angrily. I sat silent for a while. I looked out the window, the countryside blurred by.

Then the screaming started. I automatically rolled my die and it landed in the palm of my hand on number 5. It elongated into a spear.

Three Scythian Dracaena moved into our car. Snake like woman, with serpents for legs. Behind them, a huge shape emerged. It was an eight- foot tall cannibal giant. (I learned all the names from Percy and Nico) Kat was behind me with her sword drawn, and Dean aimed his shotgun. He somehow managed to duct tape his knife to the gun so it looked like a bayonet. Dean fired at the snake lady on the right. She turned into a pile of dirt. While he reloaded, Kat jumped forward and sliced the other two to dust. I was dumb enough to charge the giant. Before he could swat me aside, Dean nailed him in the eye with a celestial bronze shell. His hands flew up to his face and he bellowed angrily. I jumped forward and stabbed him through the ribs. Kat cut at his legs and the giant fell to its knees. I jumped stabbing downward on the giant's head. There was a poof sound, and all that was left was a pile of dust, and an over sized loin cloth.

"Our first monsters," I said pointing down toward the piles of dust.

"Yay" they both said sarcastically. But just our luck, the train was forced to stop at the nearest train station, somewhere in New Jersey. All of the passengers scrambled out of the doors as soon as they opened. As we exited I heard one of the conductors muttering,

"Damn engine keeps breaking down." The Mist was working its magic. We were offered full refunds on tickets, which would've made us happy, except for the fact that the next train wouldn't arrive for a couple of hours.

"Now what are we going to do?" Dean whined. "We're gonna miss our flight."

"Can either of you do a good a taxi whistle?" Kat asked. I nodded,

"Yeah but I doubt a taxi would get us there any faster."

"This isn't just any kind of taxi, Annabeth told me about it. But I don't know if it operates this far out of New York."

"Well we should try it, how do we summon this majestic taxi?" Dean asked.

"Annabeth said the farther you are away, you have to whistle really loud, and after that you can say the line in ancient Greek."

"Well do we know the line?" I asked.

"I'll take care of it," said Kat. "Just you need to whistle like you've never whistled before." I shrugged.

"This totally isn't going to work," Said Dean.

"Shut up," Kat said through clenched teeth. "Go ahead Cody." I took a deep breath and gave my best and loudest taxi whistle, it echoed throughout the streets, Mortals 3 blocks away whirled around to see where it came from. Then Kat spoke in ancient Greek, saying,

"Stethi O harma diaboles," and she through a golden drachma into the street. There was a loud crack and a smoky taxi appeared in front of us. On the roof there was one of the signs you see on regular taxis. It read Grey Sisters-Taxi Service. 3 insanely old ladies sat in the front seats arguing.

"No, no ,no," one of them said. "We can't come this far for one drachma!" Then another one said,

"We have to take what we can get, business isn't going well." The third one was about to make an argument but I cut her off.

"Hey listen we need to get to Boston, fast."

"Heroes," one of them snorted. "They always ask, never give"

"Please," I said. "We'll give you more drachmas." I pulled a whole pouch of them out of my backpack. One of them turned toward me. I almost screamed. She had no eyes or teeth.

"Now that smells like a deal," she spat.

"How many does he have Anger?" The one next to her said.

"How would I know?" Anger sounded offended. "You have the eye, Wasp" Wasp turned toward me, one bulging bloodshot eye darted back and forth.

"He has plenty," She said. "Let's take them, but I get to bite them all."

"No way!" The third lady said. "I have the tooth!"

"Give it to me Tempest!" Wasp tried to pull the single yellow tooth out of Tempest's mouth.

"Stop!" I yelled, getting frustrated. "There's enough here for you all to… to bite."

"Then what are you waiting for!" Anger yelled. The back door swung open and Kat ushered us inside. There were no seatbelts, just a heavy black chain sat across the seat.

"Hold on to something," Kat said. The taxi rocketed down the street going at speeds a taxi shouldn't have been able to go.

"Throw those coins up here, boy" said Tempest. I passed her the bag, and she began munching on coin after coin.

"Don't take them all for yourself!" Cried Wasp.

"Keep the eye on the road," yelled Anger. They began arguing uncontrollably about who should get the eye or the tooth. The taxi weaved in and out of traffic, barely missing pedestrians. They drove into oncoming traffic; a huge semi was coming right for us. Kat screamed and practically jumped into my arms. So much for holding on to something. At the last second, the taxi swerved out of the way and back onto the right side of the street. Wasp looked at me again, she frowned,

"Now this one looks familiar," she said. "Isn't he the one who has that horrifying fate?"

"Hand over the eye," said Anger. Wasp squeezed it out and handed it to Anger. She popped it into her empty eye socket, blinked a couple of times and glanced back at me,

"Yes, yes, that's him. Oh your father Hercules always made stupid decisions."

"Give me the eye, I want to get a look at him," said Tempest.

"Get it yourself," yelled Anger. "You already have the tooth."

"Yeah give it up," spat Wasp. She wrenched the tooth out of Tempest's mouth, shoved it into her black gums, and began biting coins.

"Are we there yet?" Dean complained. His knuckles were white on the black chain.

"I don't know," said Tempest. "Who's driving?" The other two sisters shrugged.

"Well are we anywhere close to Boston yet?" I asked.

"Boston? Why didn't you say so?" Wasp said. "We're nearly in DC." The car stopped suddenly, and then made a U-turn. We were moving so fast that I couldn't even see what was going on out the window.

"Here!" Anger yelled. She slammed on the brakes and the car skidded to a halt in front of a café. Dean slammed against the head rest in front of him. We stumbled out of the car, and onto the sidewalk. My knees felt like Jell-o, I could barely stand up straight. The gray sisters laughed in the car behind us, and then there was a loud crack and the taxi was gone. The mortals walked by like nothing had happened, like a taxi made of smoke had never been there.

vi

Cody

We ended up plopping down at the café on the corner. A waitress came up to us and took our orders.

"I'm tired" Dean said.

"All you've done through the whole quest is sleep" I replied. He laughed and said,

"I didn't sleep for half that amount of time, I was just pretending."

"Sure" I said sarcastically.

"If you're thinking that I slept that long, how do you think I got all of these?" he said. He then pulled out his camera. The pictures didn't just include weird things like other passengers and their bad hygiene, but of the aftermath of our first monster fight, and the gray sisters' taxi.

"Real nice," I laughed. Kat just sighed and said,

"Why do you do that anyway?"

"Well why not?" he said. "I'm thinking about making a scrapbook of our mad adventures." Kat snorted. Our waitress was back with our food. When she left, Kat asked,

"What do you think they meant about your fate? And how do they know about it anyway?"

"I have no idea," I admitted. "But whatever this fate is, it's sounding worse by the minute."

"Which is exactly why we need to fix what's wrong at Delphi," Dean said through a mouthful of food. "So the oracle can help you figure out your fate."

"Dean that actually sounded right," Kat laughed.

"For real? I was just guessing" Dean seemed stunned. We laughed and tried to talk about other things then the looming quest ahead of us. Time flies by too fast when you're having fun though. Before we knew it, we had to pay the waitress and wave down a taxi to get to the airport. It felt weird being in a mortal taxi again. I kept expecting the cabbie to turn around and have only one eye or a tooth. I looked out the window and saw old veterans in the streets. They walked through rows of cars at stop lights selling mints. I bought one through the window. Kat looked at me like I was some sort of idiot. But I sort of had a soft spot for veterans. My grandpa on the fake mortal side of my family was a veteran. I think he fought in World War II. The old memories kept disappearing. I fell back to the depressing thought of not having a family. I had a mom and dad who weren't my actual parents. My real dad is who knows where, and no one has said anything about my real mom. The taxi stopped in front of Logan International Airport. We paid, and stepped out of the car. Hundreds of people roamed around, waiting for their flight. Dean desperately tried to conceal his shotgun completely in his bag, but the barrel stuck out on top. We went through about four metal detectors, and miraculously made it through without tripping the sensors. The security guards didn't even question Dean's gun. Feeling thankful for the mist, we sat down on some benches near the entrance to where we would board our plane. We had about fifteen minutes until we would be able to board. Dean entertained Kat and I, by pick pocketing some old ladies, and then returning their things without them noticing.

Nearly a half an hour later still no one came. There was either something wrong or our flight crew was simply running late. It was exactly 1:30 in the afternoon; we should have been able to board by now. After shooting some poorly aimed spitballs, Dean pointed out a reluctant looking crew quickly entering the plane. A lady walked up to the gate, and opened it.

"You may now board the plane, please present your tickets for flight 1020 when you approach the gate." She scanned our tickets and sent us on board. We were forced to be separated because of the cheap tickets we had purchased. We sat close to the back, all about three rows apart from each other. Strangely, not many more people entered the plane, and the queue seemed much fuller when we sat down outside. The passengers were not spaced out very well either. Each of us had another passenger on either side of us. It was like everyone who had tickets in the front half of the plane decided they wanted to squeeze into the back ten rows. After everyone was finally cramped into the back of the plane, it started to move. The flight attendants had skipped the custom safety precautions. I leaned over trying to catch Kat's eye, but she was busy being squeezed between two large, incredibly hairy men. The plane had reached the runway and began to gain speed. Faster, and faster the plane went, until it rose off the ground. My ears popped almost immediately.

We couldn't speak to each other when we were this spaced out. I wanted to talk to Kat and Dean about how strange this all seemed, but I've never been on a plane before so, maybe I was just nervous.

After sitting on the plane for what seemed like hours, I got up to use the bathroom. When I entered the aisle, every passenger on the plane turned their head and looked at me, I knew this wasn't right. I looked at Kat and Dean, who seemed to have understood. I rolled my die. As soon as I had done it, all of the people on the plane transformed. The flight attendants had become scaly Scythian Dracaena. Three dog-like Telkhines exited the bathroom. A tall Cyclopes came in through the cock pit. The other passengers had become all sorts of strange monsters that I did not yet know. My die had landed on 3. I was then holding a bow in my hand, and a quiver of arrows was strapped to my back. We were surrounded. I notched an arrow and released it at a Dracaena; Dean pumped his shotgun and fired shells at the Telkhines. Kat ran forward slicing monsters to dust. Monsters charged from all directions. I cursed my unlucky roll; a bow wasn't much help in these close quarters. I fired anyway. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Dean slice the last Telkhine with his makeshift bayonet. Kat easily took down the snake women. The moment my arrows touched a monster they crumbled into dirt.

It seemed like we were winning, but we had forgotten about the Cyclopes. Kat advanced on him. He launched a seat at Kat, but she sliced it in half in mid air. He ripped more seats from the floor and continued to throw them. Dean ducked under a seat, but it still hurtled toward me. I dropped my bow, and caught it in my arms. Using my strength I lobbed the seat back at the Cyclopes. He was in mid throw and it splintered against his chest. He rounded on me, and was about to swing when Dean yelled,

"Hey ugly!" It turned around stupidly; I took the chance and aimed for the Cyclops's eye. Dean was too far for it to attack so he turned back to me. This bow was a lot easier to use than the camp ones, it was stronger and smoother, and just felt better in my hand. I launched my arrow just as it turned. For a split second I thought that I got him. But the Cyclopes had surprisingly good reflexes and caught the arrow before it had made contact. He charged me with my arrow and made to stab me with it. I dove out of the way and he plunged the arrow deep into the control panel. The plane shook and an alarm was going off. A loose chair smashed into the door and wrenched it open. The Cyclopes was sucked outside, still clutching the arrow. He rolled uncontrollably toward the engine and was shredded to a poof of dust.

We thought we were safe, we lowered our weapons; I returned mine to a die. The plane shook again and began to lose altitude fast. I ran to the front of the plane and grabbed the things I was looking for. But my relief was immediately flushed out with despair. There were only two. And there would be no way one of us would be able to carry the other. I turned back and handed Kat and Dean the parachutes.

"Where's your parachute?" Kat asked nervously.

"Don't worry I've got one, I'll be right behind you!" I yelled over the winds. They stepped up to the edge.

"You guys better jump!" I yelled, barely hearing my own voice. "Not without you" Dean said. I looked up and down the plane again for another parachute.

"Sorry guys!" I yelled into their ears, and I pushed them out of the plane. They both screamed as they plummeted. I watched as the parachutes formed above them and I knew they would be safe. Kat and Dean would probably land on the beach that was under us. I'm going to die, I thought. I ran to the front of the plane, and I pulled on different levers and controls. Nothing worked, as I expected. I made one final prayer to my father, ran to the door, and I jumped. That's it, I thought. I'm dead.

VII

Dean

It was weird not having Cody around. The sad truth was that there was no way he could have survived. I'd known Cody not even a month, yet he felt like a brother to me. Cody was awesome. He gave me free weapons, he was my friend, and he didn't think I was weird. Even if Kat and I make it to Delphi, and somehow fix what was wrong, I wouldn't want to do the rest of the quest without him.

After we had pulled our chutes, we looked up expectantly to see Cody above. It took us about ten seconds to realize that he had given his own life to save us. There was no third parachute. We were at an estimated one hundred feet above ground when we watched the plane explode in mid air. Kat screamed. I just closed my eyes. I just watched my friend die. It was unbearable, All of the pain, all the guilt.

We touched down on a sandy beach. We looked up at the falling wreckage for a sign of Cody, but I had already lost hope. I lifted Kat up out of the sand, she sniffled. We had to keep moving. Somehow I knew if we kept walking, they would find some town, some city. The beach stretched on forever. We ate every now and then, a couple of bites of ambrosia, and a few sips of nectar kept us going. We couldn't eat too much of it.

When the sun started to set, we decided to set up camp. I heaved over some driftwood from the shores, and Kat used Duct tape from my backpack to create the shelter. Kats design was really good. It used lots of wood, with little duct tape. I had only brought three rolls of it so we better not waste it. Duct tape was essential to a demigod's survival. Kat made a divider in between us. It was really roomy. We lay down inside the shelter. Kat still had tears in her eyes.

"Kat," I said, "I'm sorry, I'm sad too, but if we act like this and don't move on with the quest, we'll end up the same way." surprisingly, she spoke.

"You're right" she said shakily, "It's just that I've never seen someone die like that, you know saving us. I'm just confused, everyone kept talking about this fate he had, but he's gone." Kat started tearing up again. "Even if this fate led him to death, he would've had a lot more time to be with us right? None of it makes any sense." I had never seen Kat like this before, and it scared me. I knew Kat as a strong, brave person. I never even imagined her looking that weak.

"What are we going to do?" She cried. "How are we going to do this? There is absolutely no way we can figure this out by ourselves."

"We can't think like that," I said."If we do, we've already lost." I decided to stop talking. I felt like I was making things worse. Even if we didn't vote on it, Cody led this quest. He was just naturally able to lead us. With him, I wasn't afraid because something about him kept my head clear. But without him we were lost. I didn't tell this to Kat, but I really had no idea what to do next.

VIII

Kat

I probably had some of the worst nightmares of my life that night. Cody's death in the fiery explosion of the plane replayed over and over. Ouranos laughed, and taunted me. He knew we wouldn't be able to finish this without him. I blamed myself. I should've known there was no third parachute. The look in his eyes said it all. Like he knew he was going to do something incredibly stupid, but he didn't care. All to save a couple of people he had barely known a month.

After Dean and I broke down camp, we continued walking. It was unbelievably hot. The sun blazed over head. The only way it could have been worse was if we got attacked by monsters. I made a gesture I had seen demigods do too many times before; a three finger claw over my chest, and then pushing outward. It warded off evil.

Dean and I had walked for nearly six hours, According to his watch. Somewhere, there had to be a city or town. I felt like the bottoms of my feet would burn off in the hot sand. My mouth burned, all we had to eat was ambrosia and nectar. My vision was blurry, and I started seeing things. A small city sat about a mile away.

"You see that mirage?" I asked, completely worn out.

"That's no mirage," Dean said, "That's a real city!" We both started running. It was farther than we thought so we slowed down, panting. When we arrived, I hugged the sign that said, "Welcome to Huelva, Spain" We ran into the packed plaza. Actual people walked up and down the streets. They entered shops and ate at restaurants. We plopped down at place I guessed was a café. A waiter immediately brought us a pitcher of water and a couple of glasses. I drained the whole glass before I even knew it.

"Hmm…" Dean looked frustrated.

"What's up?" I asked. He sighed and said,

"I wish I paid more attention in Spanish class, so I can order food without having to think."

Dean managed to order us some food with his broken Spanish. We ate as much as we could and shoved what we couldn't get down into our bags. Dean made a loud, healthy burp. I laughed. It felt good to laugh. I haven't laughed in days. If Cody was here, they probably would have gotten into a burping contest. The thought made me laugh again. Dean questioned the waitress about a nearby plane crash, but she had no clue what he was talking about. I guess the Mist had covered it up pretty well. Dean paid with a wad of Euros he snatched out of a lady's purse. I looked down at my clothes and my smile faded. My jeans had been turned into tattered shorts, and my orange camp half-blood t-shirt had a few holes in it.

"We need to get new clothes," I said.

"Well, I'm not much of a shopping person," Dean said.

I got up from the table, grabbed Dean by the wrist and pulled him through the city looking for clothes. I almost lost hope when I saw a little sports outlet.

"There!" I pointed out. It was a small building that had Spain futbol jerseys hanging in the windows. I marched into the store, snatched what I needed off of some racks, and bought them at the counter. I changed in the bathroom, and walked out feeling a lot better. I wore a red Spain futbol jersey, and tan shorts. The jersey was big so had to tie up the back with a rubber band.

"Aren't you going to buy any new clothes?" I asked Dean when I found him outside.

"I told you I'm not a shopping person," Dean said. He looked down at his dirty black t-shirt. I sighed and said,

"Alright, suit yourself, have you at least thought of anyways we could continue the quest?" He nodded.

"A boat would be a good choice, but we'll need a lot more money to get a boat big enough to travel the Mediterranean on."

"Well where are we going to get that kind of money?" I said, losing hope. Dean slapped his forehead and said,

"Oh gods I'm dumb, I completely forgot." I looked at him confused.

"What?" I asked. "You almost forgot what?" He ignored my question and walked up to an ATM.

"Don't tell any of the other Hermes guys about this, they'll just beg me to show them how," Dean said. He knocked on the metal side to the tune of "pop goes the weasel". I watched stunned, as Euros started pouring out of the machine. Dean held out his back pack and it filled to the top. He closed the bag, grabbed a few more wads of Euros, and stuffed them in his pockets. Money continued to spit out of the machine.

"Watch this" Dean said with a wicked grin on his face. "Free Euros over here!" Dean yelled. People caught on and ran over to the ATM.

"How did you do that?" Kat asked.

"I'm a son of Hermes, duh," he said. Like that explained it. "We don't need to buy a boat; we have enough Euros to buy a yacht." We headed toward the docks where all of the larger personal boats sat in the water. Dean walked over to a chubby man with a wispy beard, sitting on a deck near a brand new mini yacht. Dean pointed and tried his broken Spanish again. The man looked at Dean confused. Dean rolled his eyes and poured our Euros on the table in front of him. The man's eyes were wide open.

"Take it, Take it!" he yelled in English. "I'm rich!" He handed Dean the key, hugged him and ran off the dock with a bag full of money.

"He could've told me he spoke English," He said stubbornly. "C'mon Kat," He said "Your cruise awaits."

IX

Cody

I woke up on the back of a golden dragon. We were flying above the clouds, the sky above me was bright blue, and the clouds below looked like cotton candy. There was a guy sitting in front of me holding the reins, and a girl sitting behind me.

"Am I dead?" I asked sleepily. The guy in front of me turned, he had black hair and an elfish face. He snorted and said

"You would be, if Festus hadn't caught you." He patted the dragon's side, and it blew flames into the air. The dragon had whirring teeth, and glowing ruby eyes. It was a robot.

"Who are you?" I asked; suddenly awake.

"My name is Leo" he said like he was talking to a first grader.

"Wait a minute, the Leo? The one who disappeared? So I really am dead." I said sadly.

"Hold it," Leo said. "One, yeah the Leo. Two, I'm not dead, and three, no you're not dead."

"What?" I said completely mystified.

"We were flying around the neighborhood Festus, and happened to see your plane exploding." Leo said. "Your two friends made it down safe, you weren't so lucky."

"You caught me, on happy the robot dragon?" I seemed to translate the Latin automatically.

"Whoa," Leo sounded offended. "Festus is not a robot. He's a ten ton, fire breathing, destruction Machine"

"Where are my friends?" I asked, ignoring what Leo said.

"We're searching for them," he said. "They've got about a ten mile lead on us since we had to land and make sure you were alive." My head was still exploding with questions.

"Oh how could I forget, the young lady behind you is Calypso." I stared at her. Of course there was no doubt she was the real one.

"How is she off her—" Leo cut me off.

"I saved her from the island," He said proudly. I decided to hold in the rest of my questions. I was just happy that I was alive and that my friends were okay. I couldn't wait to see them. They probably thought I was dead just how everyone else thought that Leo was dead.

I tried to relax. Leo didn't bother to explain anything about how he wasn't actually dead and said nothing about Calypso either. I focused on the setting sun, and thought about how the other two had gotten along without me.

We flew into open sea. No land was visible around us. It was completely dark, except for the glow of Festus' ruby eyes. In the distance I made out a faint light. It was a boat, a big boat. Maybe Kat and Dean were on board. We started to drop and I knew that this must be it. But something was wrong; as we flew by I saw monsters climbing up the sides of the boat. Two smaller figures were visible fighting off the hoards of monsters.

"That's our boat!" Leo said. "Cody, when we pass over, you need to jump!"

"O- Okay!" I stammered. Festus gained speed. I jumped, kicking off of Festus' back. I plummeted 30 feet toward the deck, and landed on Telkhine with a crunch. It yelped and turned to dust. I fished my die out of my pocket. Another telkhine, probably a buddy of the one that I had just crushed advanced on me. I threw my die at its forehead. It bounced back landing in my hand on the number six. Two identical short blades grew in my hand. I sliced through monsters, my twin blades cut through armor like butter. The closer I got to the sounds of my friends voices, the more monsters seemed to try to push me back. I was being overwhelmed when there was a loud metal grinding roar. Out of the night sky, Festus came soaring over the boat slashing the rest of the monsters to dust.

"Holy Hera, Cody, you're alive!"

"I am?" I said dazed.

"Kat, Get over here!" Someone said. I realized it was Dean. Festus dropped next to me.

"What's up?" Leo said sliding off of his back. Kat ran over to me. She was covered in monster slime and dirt. She wore a red Spain soccer jersey that was missing the sleeves and had singe marks on it.

"Oh my gods," Kat said. She hugged me, and then leapt back, embarrassed. Dean led us inside as Leo helped Calypso from the dragon's back. We slumped into a set of chairs around a table. Calypso began tending to minor cuts and wounds, as Leo animatedly described me falling through the sky right as the plane had exploded. He started to talk about his own story, and how he was here at all.

"So enough about me," Leo clapped his hands together. "Tell us about your quest." I was too tired to explain the whole thing but luckily Kat was there to save me. She told Leo and Calypso about our mission to Delphi and how we had to find out what was going on there. It was the only way to get the oracle to start speaking prophecies again. When she finished, Calypso finally spoke,

"Sounds like you guys are going to need some help." She looked pleadingly at Leo.

"Sure, why not?" Leo shrugged.

X

Kat

I still couldn't understand how Cody was alive, even after Leo told the story. I felt like I would've seen a giant bronze dragon snatch him out of the air. Leo disappears for months, but just so happens to be flying nearby and saves Cody. He didn't even explain where he and Calypso had been all this time. He just said they were "sidetracked", whatever that means. All I knew was that everyone was going to kick his butt once he got back to camp half-blood.

After a couple of jokes, Leo and Dean had sort of become best buddies. Dean followed him to go work on the engines of the boat. And then there was Calypso who would cut fresh fruit in the kitchen. (Yes the boat had a kitchen, it also had a dining room, a TV room complete with an Xbox, two bathrooms and four bedrooms). This left Cody and I to cleaning duty. The last owner wasn't exactly what I would call tidy.

We caught up on what had happened while we had been separated. I told him about how Dean and I had to walk through miles of blazing heat. I even admitted, blushingly, that the quest wasn't the same without him. I laughed when Cody told me how he kept thinking he was dead on Festus's back.

After we finished wiping up monster goo off of the main deck, we split up. I took a walk around the boat. If there was a dead or dying plant sitting in a pot in a corner, I would point at them and they would look brand new and fully sprouted.

I had no idea where we were going, but I was bored. There was nothing to do but sit around for hours on guard duty. Leo and Dean never came up from the engine room. Calypso would walk around handing everyone water or snacks as they worked. Cody was still cleaning up the bedrooms; I hadn't seen him since we cleaned up the deck. I sat in the spinney chair that sat in front of the wheel and all of the controls to the ship. It was a cloudless day, and all I could see was open sea for miles. Cody slipped into the room and sat down next to me.

"I really hate boats" he said. "Whoever owned this thing was disgusting." I nodded.

"They always manage to get caught in storms too," he added. I looked back out the window puzzled. Where I had just seen blue sky, low black clouds hung over the ocean like a blanket.

"You okay Kat?" Cody asked.

"Um yeah," I said shakily. I didn't realize that my growing fear had caused the plant nearest to me to shrivel up and die.

"We should warn the others," I managed. "It looks bad." As they walked back inside, thunder rung in the distance. What I thought was hard rain at first, turned out to be hail. It smashed against the windows, each time one landed, it threatened to crack the glass.

"Hail? Out here?" Cody sounded bewildered.

Leo walked into the room covered in engine grease as usual.

"Good news," He said, "We're on course for Delphi, but we may need to make a few stops for gas or other supplies."

"We're not going to get anywhere in this," Cody said.

"She should pull through" Leo said. "It's just a little hail storm."

Just as he said it, a hailstone the size of my head crashed through the window onto the floor in-between us. Dean walked in,

"Who's breaking stuff without me?" He said. Calypso came in from the kitchen to see what the commotion was. She saw the large hailstone on the floor.

"This is not good" she said.

"It can't be that bad, I've seen worse storms" Dean almost sounded proud.

"But have you ever seen hailstorms in the middle of the ocean?" Calypso retorted.

"Well, I guess not," said Dean. Most of the hail that was hitting the windows were baseball sized. But every now and then a cannon ball sized one would shake the boat.

"We're in the northeast wind's territory," Calypso sounded frightened. "Kaikias' territory." I thought of a fuzzy memory about one of the gods of the winds, one who controlled hailstorms.

"Who does this Kaikias think he is? Some sort of god?" Leo said.

"Well yeah," said Cody.

"I mean-, well you know what I mean," Leo laughed.

"This is no laughing matter, we need to talk to him," Calypso said. "He'll try to sink our ship if we don't have permission to pass."

We stepped out into the storm, under Festus' wing. He hadn't been damaged by the hail, but looked slightly annoyed. The hail seemed to shrink to a regular size. The clouds split apart, like an eye opening up, and blue sky was revealed. Several figures descended from the clouds. The one in the center looked no older than Percy. But his hair changed everything. It was well trimmed but white in color. He had a start to a thin beard growing. His eyes were a piercing blue color. When he touched down on the ships front deck, I realized that his two companions were transparent. Their facial features were hard to make out, but they seemed to bend with the direction of the wind.

"Hello," the man said in a mock voice. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

XI

Dean

Before this, I had never met a god, not even my own father. To be honest, they weren't all that impressive. This guy kind of reminded me of Jack Frost from the Santa Clause movie. I fought the urge to call him "Frosty". I almost lost it, but Calypso stepped forward,

"Please sir, we request passage through your territory." Kaikias smiled.

"Whoa, hold your horses, and dragons," he eyed Festus. "What are you doing off of your island?" Calypso glared at him. Leo stepped in front of Calypso, she tried to hold him back but he raised his hand.

"I rescued her," he said smugly. "I was the hero that saved her." The god snorted.

"They can hardly call you a hero for that," he said. "She deserved to be on that island." Fire burst from Leo's hands. The falling hail became the size of baseballs once more. I lost the battle in my head, and I stepped between them.

"Whoa there Frosty," I said. Kaikias looked at me in disgust. "You know, Leo here is good pals with your boss, Boreas." The wind god stiffened. I winked at Leo, trying to get him to remember what he had told me. When we were below deck, working on the engines, Leo had plenty of time to tell me all about his journeys with Jason and Piper. I remembered one in particular where they had to pay a visit to the north wind god, Boreas. Leo seemed to have understood.

"Yeah and it just so happens, he owes me a favor," Leo said. The god winced. "And I don't think he wants to leave his ice palace all the way in Quebec, just to deal with you." Kaikias looked troubled. He was probably trying to decide if he would rather get fired, or let go a group of troublesome teenagers. He finally spoke up and said,

"Very well, proceed on your worthless quest, but my storms will not be forgiving." He turned back toward his wind spirits and began to rise into the air. Just as we thought we were in the clear, Kaikias turned around.

"Now wait a minute," he said. I stood still; I could see my breath in the cold air in front of me. "I could've sworn that Boreas had just moved to Winnipeg." The god smiled cruelly. He had caught us.

"Busted," I said. The wind picked up, knocking us off our feet. Leo was thrown into the frozen hot tub. Cody had already rolled his die. He hefted a double sided battle axe. Kat had drawn her sword. Calypso wielded a bronze knife, backhanded. I groped down for my shotgun and realized that I had left it inside. Oops, silly me. I ducked under a sheet of ice pellets into the common area of the boat. The battle raged outside. Leo had emerged from the ice hot tub steaming. He threw fireballs at surrounding wind spirits. The windows of the boat exploded into glass shards. I snatched my shotgun off of the table, and leapt out a window into the chaos outside. I fired shells at wind spirits but it seemed to go right through them. The others didn't seem to be having any luck. Cody swung his axe at no effect. He was doing more damage to the ship then to the wind spirits. The wind picked up again. Our weapons started freezing over. In the middle of all of it was Kaikias. He stood there smiling. He side stepped a knife that Calypso had just flung at him. Wait a minute, why would he get out of the way, wouldn't it just pass through him? Then it hit me. Kaikias was the only solid one there, he controlled the wind spirits. I saw Cody closest to him; he was covering Kat's back.

"Cody, hit Frosty, he's solid!" I yelled. Cody understood, gave notice to Kat and stepped behind the wind god. He took a swing; his axe still had a large chunk of the deck stuck on the blade. I could hear the crack over the winds. Kaikius fell to his knees, the wind stopped. The hail melted into water in mid air. Wind spirits stopped attacking and gathered around their master and lifted him into the sky. The clouds swallowed them, and they were gone. The storm dissipated as quickly as it had appeared.

Our once beautiful boat now looked like it belonged at the bottom of the sea. There was no point in cleaning up; Leo said we'd have to ditch the boat the next time we stopped. The boat simply didn't have the will to go on. Just like the rest of us. You'd think after a victory like that we'd be excited. But we were the complete opposite, our spirits simply went with the boat.

Leo was forced to work on the engines nonstop to keep us moving. I gotta say it was pretty impressive. He knew exactly what every machine did. He understood the countless dials. At one point Leo had to take a break. Of all people he could choose to watch the engine, he chooses me. It seemed the moment Leo left the room the engines got worse. I could hear the motors groaning, oil sputtered from breaches in the machines. I had no clue on what to do. Yeah sure, Leo had shown me the basics. But did he really think I was paying attention? I mean my ADHD is incurable. Smoke rose from the machines. I tried my best but I was worried that if I touched anything it would explode.

As if in slow motion a single spark bore off of a piston and all Hades broke loose. The engine room was on fire.

XII

Cody

Smoke filled my nostrils as Kat and I played a half hearted game of Go Fish. I assumed that Leo had it under control. To my horror, I saw Leo helping himself to some snacks in the kitchen. Someone came thundering down the hall. Dean was pale, and he glistened with sweat.

"Abandon ship!" He yelled. "Let's get out of here, she's gonna blow!" I was suddenly awake. I quickly stuffed my things back into my backpack and met the others on the front deck with Festus.

"I leave you alone for five minutes!" Leo yelled. We all climbed onto the dragon behind him. We took off just in the nick of time. Just when we got out of range, the ship exploded, sending parts in a 200 foot radius.

"Sorry," Dean said weakly. "It's not as easy as it looks, honest." Leo muttered something about Dean being as reliable as a drill with no power. Dean didn't speak much for the rest of the trip. I kind of felt bad, I'm sure I couldn't have figured out the controls. But Leo had trusted him.

The sea was spread out before us. The clouds looked ominous, and I silently prayed that our pal Kaikias was still out of commission. Kat caught my eye, and then quickly averted her gaze to the sea below. Festus groaned, like he was complaining about the long flight. Leo seemed to have understood because he said,

"Festus is tired, we're gonna have to find somewhere to land soon." Festus seemed to be excited by the mention of land. He did an unexpected barrel roll. I held on for dear life as the others screamed. Kat lost her grip and slipped off of the dragons back. I grabbed her by the wrist before she could slip out of reach, and pulled her back onto the dragon. She shuddered and said,

"Thanks, but I think I'm going to be sick." She held her hand to her mouth.

"Oh you better not," I said. "I'm right behind you."

Leo pointed to a green blotch in the distance.

"Well you think you can hold it a bit longer? We're almost there. And I do not want to have to clean throw up off of Festus' hide."

He started clicking some buttons on this control panel that I hadn't noticed before. He tapped Festus' neck in a strange pattern; pausing every now and then, Morse code. Festus must've understood it because we began to descend. Below us we could see the city lights of Palma Spain. Leo had Festus land in the middle of a forest area to avoid freaking out mortals.

We were out of money, and there were no ATMs left in sight for Dean to rob. So we were forced to make camp right there in the woods. The sun had already gone down. We made a simple shelter using tarp from our backpacks. We laid one side on the ground and we hung the other above us to protect from rain. It was alright, but I've seen better. We didn't have much protection from the cold other than our sleeping bags. Kaikias had made the temperature nearly below freezing. When we were all inside we piled thick brush around the edges, boxing us in. It was the ultimate demigod hideout.

I thought about how a single monster sniff us out and could easily break down the branches and kill us. But I decided not to mention it. I volunteered first watch but I was denied by Leo.

"I've gotta shut Festus down for the night anyway," He said. I slipped into my sleeping bag. Kat bade me goodnight from across the tent. Dean winked at me. I didn't know what his deal was. Kat and I were friends, that's it.

That night I had my first dreams while on the quest. A young guy, maybe in his twenties, stood before me. Je had dark brown hair like me, and a short trimmed beard. He was tall and well built. He seemed young, but old at the same time, if that was possible.

"I had to move you," he said in a deep voice. Then he spoke in a hurry. "You'll understand when you wake up. Just keep doing what you're doing. You're making me proud." Then the scene shifted. I was at a place that I did not recognize. White stone was in crumbled heaps at my feet. In front of me was a large circular stone platform. Tall columns emerged from the base. Some of the columns had crumbled to gravel after the millennia that it stood there. At the center of the platform, a man darker than night itself stood. Not the same as Ouranos, but similar. Just looking at him I felt like I would never see light again.

"What are you waiting for hero," he said. "Come find me, strike me down if you dare. You will fear the darkness like a child." I watched horrified as my own shadow engulfed me, and everything in the vicinity. It was suffocating me. I clasped my throat desperately. I couldn't tell if I was blacking out in the endless darkness.

I woke up gasping for breath. The air was cold, and it felt like needles in my lungs. I sat up and took in my surroundings. I was no longer under our makeshift tent. The grass was wet; it must've been storming while I slept. Strangely enough, I was mostly dry, except for where I was laying in the grass. The man in my dreams said that he had moved me. He also said he was proud of me. Could he have been, my father? I didn't think he would look so young. But why would he move me away from my friends? I was safer with them. Leo had taken the first watch. He would have woken us up if something was wrong. I got up and looked for our campsite. It couldn't have been far. I squinted in the darkness, looking for a sign of them. My toe connected with something big, and heavy. I cursed and grabbed my foot. I felt down into the darkness, it was a metal suitcase. I realized that this was Festus. I remembered vaguely that when Leo would shut Festus down he would transform into a suitcase. I turned around and my heart dropped. The camp was destroyed. The tarps were torn to shreds, and the wall of brush we had piled up had been crushed. Where the inside used to be I found my back pack along with Kat and Dean's. Nobody was here. Not good, I thought. I rummaged through my bag and brought out a flashlight. It flickered on revealing the scene around me. In the mud around the tent, were huge footprints. And I don't mean like Dean's size 16 huge footprints, these had to be at least a size 36. There were three different sets from what I could tell. All three of them had led off into the same directions. I followed the footprints deeper into the woods. I had shouldered Kat and Dean's bags, and dragged Festus in suitcase form too. Hopefully it would help them escape from whatever had trampled the camp. In the distance I could see a faint light. I switched off my flashlight, and proceeded more slowly. As I approached, I saw a huge cooking fire. Above it was a long stick with a handle on the end. In the trees above I saw struggling figures, hung upside down. I recognized Kat, Dean, and Calypso. They wriggled in their bindings, and their mouths were gagged. On the end Leo hung limply. He did not stir like the others. I could see a large welt on his forehead. In the firelight stood three of the largest and ugliest Laistrygonians I had ever seen. The one in the middle stood nearly ten feet tall, and his two buddies on either side of him stood around eight feet. One of the shorter ones spoke,

"Can we eat them yet Joe Bob?" He complained in a deep growling voice.

"No," the largest one said who must've been Joe Bob. "The fire is not hot enough yet, all of this wet wood is slowing us down." The smaller giant pouted and rotated the stick experimentally. They were going to cook my friends; rotisserie style. The second smaller giant had moved closer to them.

"I can't wait any longer," he said. "What do you say we eat you now, little girl?" He had removed Kat's gag. She spat in his face, and the giant growled. He grabbed her by the hair and she yelped.

"Watch it missy," the giant said. "Or we might just cook you first." He flicked her, and sent her spiraling. He laughed, grabbing her again. I completely snapped. I found myself filling with anger. No one does that to my friends. I rolled my die, and for a second I thought that no weapon had appeared in my hand. I looked down and saw a pair of Celestial bronze brass knuckles gleaming on my fists, number 2 on my die. I ditched the backpacks and charged forward.

"Hey, poop face!" I yelled. I probably could have thought of a better insult than "poop face" but I didn't care at the moment. I got the giants attention. He let go of Kat's hair, and turned toward me.

"Oh goody," he said. "More demigods to—" I dove into him, catching him off guard. He stumbled backwards and fell to the ground. The trees shook around us. I wailed on the giants face.

"No. One. Does. That. To. My. Friends!" With each word I landed another blow on the giants deformed face. On the final swing the giant disintegrated. The two other giants hadn't moved. They sat on their butts stunned. The smaller one shook his head and got up making a loud roar. He started on me, and snatched me up with one hand, and then wrapped the other around me. He was trying to squeeze me to death, the son of Hercules. I easily wriggled my arms free, and broke his massive fingers. He went down cradling his hand.

"Cody!" Kat screamed. The third giant, Joe Bob, had begun to pull them out of the trees. Another wave of anger surged inside of me. I reached under the giant I had taken down, and lifted him up like he weighed no more than a teddy bear. Then with all of my strength I threw the flailing giant right at Joe Bob. He hurtled toward him like a boulder that had been launched from a catapult. The giant caught Joe Bob into the chest, and he toppled over straight into the cooking fire. They exploded into a shower of sparks and burning loin cloths. I switched my brass knuckles to my double edged sword, and began cutting my friends bindings. Right as I put my sword away I realized how tired I was. Every muscle in my body ached; I leaned on my sword for support. Leo had finally come around, he was dazed but alright.

"I knew you were strong," Dean said. "But not that strong." I laughed and said,

"Well I could thank my dad for that." I looked up into the stars and made a silent prayer to my father. I owe you one, I thought.

It was still late, and we had nowhere to go. We made another simple shelter with the last bits of tarp we had. This time we lay out under the stars. Calypso took care of Leo's wounds. He had a few nasty bumps from when the giants had attacked him by surprise, but he would be alright. Kat sat down next to me, against a tree stump.

"Hey," she said. "That was pretty cool what you did back there."

"Yeah I guess."

"You got pretty angry when he flicked me," she said.

"Well yeah. You're my friend; I wouldn't let them hurt you." She seemed to stiffen when I said the word friend.

"Yeah, um friends" She looked me right in the eyes. I looked down at my shoes. I felt my cheeks burning.

"Well—" I started to say. Dean groaned really loudly.

"No, no, no," he said. "My camera got soaked! I lost all the pictures from the quest." Leo snorted from the other side of the tarp.

"I should probably get to bed." I said, looking for a way out. "Goodnight Kat." She looked a little hurt but she managed,

"'night Cody" and she curled up against the stump. I lay back on the other side of the stump, and hoped for a dreamless night.

XIII

Kat

I woke up before anyone else did, and I thanked the gods for the night with no dreams. No one had taken watch last night after the incident. But it didn't really matter; we were all so tired we probably would have just laid there if more giants had shown up. I got up to stretch my legs and accidentally had trodden on something squishy. It was Cody's face. He groaned and turned over, continuing to snore. It was getting too hard to lie to myself. I admit it, I kind of like Cody. He was cute, and he must've been hitting his magic weight set before we left, because he was built like a college wrestler. He could lift entire giants with ease, but he was so oblivious. Even Dean, (embarrassingly enough) had noticed how I've been trying to get Cody's attention. Last night Cody had called us all his friends. But when I tried to question him about if a certain someone, was anymore than a friend, he backed out. I didn't know if he truly was that oblivious, or he simply didn't see me the same way. Either way, he had completely and utterly friend-zoned me. There were plenty of guys at camp but of course, the one I like, I can't have.

The others slowly started to get moving. Dean buried his destroyed camera in the mud, but he slipped the ruined SD card into his pocket. Cody was trying to wipe a boot shaped footprint off of his face. Dean caught my eye. He walked over to me and said,

"You know, stepping on his face won't really score you any points."

"I know; it was an accident" I hissed at him.

"You should just tell him about… you know," he said. "I can tell him for you if you want."

"Do it; and you'll wish you were never born," I said to him. He snickered and went to go help Leo. They decided to go and try to rebuild the old shelter. They thought that it could help future demigods in our situation. Calypso hung back with Cody. He was leaning on Festus in suitcase form. I was fuming on the inside. Of course he would talk to her instead, she was gorgeous. Here I go again, I thought. I guess I was stuck still liking the big jerk. Leo emerged from the tent.

"Ready to go?" he asked. I nodded.

"Somewhere with fresh clothes please" I said, looking down at my torn Spain soccer jersey.

"And an ATM," Dean chimed in. Leo knocked on the suitcase and Festus sprung out growing to full size. Leo climbed on first, and then the rest of us climbed on after him. I made sure I was last sitting behind Cody. Once we were in the air, I leaned forward and put my arms around Cody's waist. He stiffened, but didn't complain. In front of him, Dean was trying to hold in a laugh desperately. He was shaking so hard that I thought he would explode.

"Dean, you alright man?" Cody asked. Dean let out a laugh/cough, but he covered his nose like it was a sneeze.

"Umm, bless you?" Cody was laughing as he said it.

"Sorry," said Dean laughing. "I think something flew into my nose." He wiped a tear from his eye. Cody shook his head. Dean was getting awfully close to me wanting to kill him. I leaned my chin on to Cody's shoulder. He remained still, which was a good sign. Leo and Calypso were having their own conversation up front.

"Yeah," he said. "And remember when everyone was like, whoa dude you got her off of the island!" Calypso laughed.

"I am actually excited to go back to camp," she said wistfully. I realized that I probably shouldn't judge Calypso too harshly. She had been confined to an island for thousands of years and she's still just trying to settle in to the new world.

Once again we were flying over open sea. The clouds were high in the sky, small and wispy. The sun glittered off of the waves. It was beautiful. In other words, we were bored out of our minds. The long flight was making us weary, and we were sore from sitting on nothing but metal dragon all day. Up in the front, Leo and Calypso shared a leather saddle. At least some of us weren't dying. In the distance I saw a white glint in the sea. Apparently Festus had seen it too because he started to descend.

"Whoa boy," Leo said. He was just about to pull back on the reins when he saw the cruise ship. It had to be over 300 meters long. I could make out people milling around on the deck. Not a trap, I thought.

We flew low trying not to attract attention from the ship. On the side, it read Princess Andromeda. The ship was beautiful, except for the 30 foot masthead of a ghoulish looking woman.

"I swear I've heard that name before," I said.

"We have to land," Dean said. "Just imagine all the cash I can swipe out of people's bags." This seemed like a good reason to Leo, because less than a minute later we landed on the empty helipad.

"You think anyone saw us?" Cody asked.

"Nah the Mist should have covered it up," said Leo. The five of us headed down to the deck. Shops lined the huge pool in the center of the boat. I made out all kinds of restaurants. Just when everyone was getting excited I had to ruin their hopes.

"What are we going to do about rooms?" I asked. No one answered, they didn't want to. This place seemed perfect for a couple of days of rest. Dean was about to speak up when a guy with a bright blue uniform walked up to us.

"Rooms you say? Don't worry about that, it's covered." I looked around at the others, they were just as confused as I was. This guy probably thought we were some rich guy's kids. He handed us each a blue room key.

"There's one room for the gentlemen, and one for the ladies. I hope you enjoy your stay!" He walked off, leaving us all stunned. With are key cards, there were white card holders showing our two room numbers.

"Oh man," Dean said. "This just keeps getting better and better.

We followed the maps on the walls of the boat to find our rooms. The guys entered their room, and I knew it must've been good from the sound of their gasps. I helped Calypso swipe the key card and the door clicked open. Inside, there were two beds, a full bath, a sofa facing a wide screen TV, and porthole windows overlooking the sea. Dean entered from the door that connected in between the two rooms. He was already changed into a pair of swimming trunks, and a fresh T- shirt.

"This is great!" He said. "The clothes even fit us." I looked in the drawers of the dressers and sure enough, everything in there was my size.

"Whoa," I said. There were some expensive looking clothes in there, more expensive than I've ever had. Calypso and I took turns showering. The guys did the same in their room. Soon I was dressed in a new two piece green swimsuit, covered in short-shorts, and a blue tank top. After everyone was dressed, we met outside our rooms.

"Well what should we do now?" I asked everyone. Dean pointed at the map where the pool was.

"Fun," he said.

The pool was enormous. It had a diving board, and huge water slides. We left our bags by a chair near the pool. I had packed my sword just in case, somehow this seemed too perfect. I made Cody and Dean pack their weapons too. They complained at first, but they eventually came through. I removed my tank top and shorts, and put on a pair of sunglasses. Cody was looking at me funny.

"What?" I asked. He looked down at his feet and said,

"Oh, it's… nothing." His ears turned pink. I couldn't help but smile. Maybe this stop at the boat was worth it after all. We were just a couple of teenagers having a good time. We tried the water slides first, which were awesome. They went up nearly ten stories, spiraling all the way back down to the bottom. There was even a zip line up there. It led back down to a deep part of the pool. Personally I didn't want to die, but apparently the guys did. They tried the zip line multiple times, each time hanging from it a little bit more dangerously than the last. The life guard must've been cool with it because he didn't say anything. After they got bored of that, they had a trick contest on the diving board. I ended up winning; I had been a diver when I was younger, before I knew I was a half-blood. Dean took second place for bravery. He did a painful belly flop off of the high dive. When he got out of the pool, his whole front side looked as if he was sun burned. The whole water park amazed Calypso; she had never seen anything like this before. But she decided to sit out when we started up a game of ultimate Frisbee in the shallow end of the pool. Calypso went to search for food while we played. It was Cody and I, against Leo and Dean. Cody was really good. He could throw across the whole pool, and caught every pass even if they were bad. I heard that Hercules was also the god of athletes, so maybe he was getting an extra boost. Cody continued to pass it to me even though I kept fumbling with it. We were losing since I couldn't make a single catch. I knew it was silly to get frustrated by a game, but I couldn't help myself. Cody intercepted a pass from Leo.

"Go long," he told me. I was about to complain but I ended up wading my way to the other side of the pool. Our end zone was in between a kiddy slide and a little underwater fountain that bubbled on the surface. Leo started to make his way over to cover me when Dean said,

"Don't bother, dude. Kat can't catch." Leo stopped, and he and Dean started talking right in the middle of our game. They were waiting for me to drop it.

"Hey," Cody said. "If she catches this, the game is tied."

"Oh, sure whatever," Dean agreed. Cody let the Frisbee loose. It soared across the water straight in my direction. It came in about 3 feet to my right so I had to dive to try and catch it. I caught the disc in my hands and fell into the water. I stood up raising the Frisbee over my head. Cody was running over to me yelling,

"YEEEAAAHHH!" He held his hand up, and I threw my arms around him. He pushed away awkwardly, saying,

"Um…" My face was bright red; I realized that he was going for a high five, not to hug me. I was totally embarrassed. But he put his arm around my shoulder, which made me feel better, and steered me back toward the group.

"Hey guys, Kat just tied up the game." Cody said. I blushed looking down into the water.

"What do you mean?" Leo said. "Last I checked we were winning ten to zero."

"That was before Dean agreed to our terms," Cody smiled.

"Wait, she actually caught it?" I nodded and Cody winked at me. Leo dived at Dean, taking him down into the water.

"You- Stupid- idiot!" Leo yelled in between splashes. We laughed and decided to take a break from the game. Calypso had come back with food. After we dried off, we chowed down on all sorts of demigod approved snacks. Calypso picked up the Frisbee we were using.

"There are many strange sports in this age," she said.

"It's not that different. It's like a modernized version of discus." I said. She frowned and threw it just like you would in the actual sport. Since the Frisbee was plastic, it flailed from the strange throw and hit a man in the back of the head. I ran over to him and said,

"I am so sorry sir; we didn't mean to hit you." He turned slowly. His glassy eyes looked down at me, and he said,

"My family and I are on vacation. We are having fun. We are having fun on this boat together." He said each word like he was a robot. I stared at him blankly. His two sons turned toward me with the same glassy eyes.

"This boat is nice. I can't wait to try the zip line." They both said it at the same time with the same robotic voice. Creepy I thought. I was about to go back to our seats, when I turned right into Cody, I jumped.

"Something about this isn't right." He said. I nodded. Every passenger had the same blank expression and glassy eyes.

"We better change in case we have to leave in a hurry," said Cody. He was eyeing every passenger as they walked by. I nodded. I was really disappointed. I was having a great time, and now we find out that all the passengers seem to be zombie like. We all grabbed our bags and set off toward the public bathrooms. They were closest to the helipad where Festus was. The bathroom was completely empty. I entered a stall and changed out of my new bathing suit into some fresh dry clothes that I packed from our room. Just as I pulled on my T-shirt, the door to the bathroom opened.

"Ugh, I hate thisss boat, it alwaysss smellsss like demigodsss." A voice hissed. It could only be the voice of a dracaena. I looked through the crack in the stall and saw two of them walking toward the sink.

"Lassst time I wasss on thisss boat, it wasss destroyed by two of them. I can't wait to get my clawsss on one," said the second dracaena. Then it all made sense. I can't believe that I forgot about the boat filled with monsters and mortals shrouded in the Mist. I was just starting at camp when Percy and another senior camper started practicing on old boats on the shore. Their mission was to destroy the cruise ship and get out without being seen. It all went south when they were caught and Charles Beckendorf, the other camper, had to sacrifice himself to destroy the boat. Its name was the Princess Andromeda. But how could the boat be back? It was blown to bits with Greek fire, one of the most explosive magical substances in the world. I was planning to wait until the dracaena left but my toilet decided to flush. It was one of those sensor flush toilets; I must've passed in front of it. They stopped talking and I knew they were staring right at my stall. I made a split second decision, and opened up the stall door. I tried to make my face as blank as possible, and I looked right at the dracaena.

"I am in a bathroom," I said in a choppy zombie voice. "I am having fun." The dracaena looked at each other and then back at me.

"Obliviousss mortalsss," hissed the one on the right. Her forked tongue flicked between her teeth. My plan worked, thank the gods. I left the bathroom, and right as the door shut behind me I ran toward the model ship. This was where we were supposed to meet after we changed. Calypso waited there alone.

"Where are the guys?" I asked.

"They have not returned yet."

"Ugh," I fumed. Finally the rest of the group returned. They were all changed into fresh shorts and T-shirts.

"Well finally! What took you guys so long?" I crossed my arms.

"There was a line," said Dean. "What does it matter anyway?"

"We need to get off this boat right now," I told them. I explained about the dracaena, and how this was the boat that was destroyed almost 2 years ago.

"It must be some kind of monster nest," said Calypso. "They reform, just like the monsters." I couldn't even imagine seeing this cruise ship just sitting in the bottom of Tartarus.

"We're leaving now," said Leo.

"Leaving?" A new deep voice said. "But lunch has just begun." The largest Laestrygonian I've ever seen stood before us.

XIV

Dean

One word described the giant; RUN. He was fifteen feet tall, easy. His thick greasy hair was shoulder length, and somehow he was even uglier than the ones that Cody had beaten up. He wore a lion skin cape and size XXXXXL armor. All five of us stared up at the giant, while he grinned down at us. The brainwashed mortals continued to walk by like there wasn't a twenty foot giant standing on the poop deck.

"I am Antiphates, king of the Laestrygonians." He said. Kat made a little squeal.

"We didn't ask who you were," I said.

"Oho!" The giant boomed. "This one has got some attitude." I was about to say something smart but Kat cut me off.

"Shut up!" She hissed. "No hero has ever beaten him, don't you understand?"

"You should listen to your girlfriend, she's got brains." The giant said. Kat was fuming. I mean we were friends, but I would never go there with her. Cody even looked a little ticked off by that comment.

"Come with me!" He bellowed. I would've protested, but a dracaena poked me in the back with a spear. They confiscated our weapons. Cody tried to tell them he didn't have a weapon, but they took his die anyway. The giant lumbered ahead, leading us to our deaths. He pointed out the different stores like he was giving a tour.

"So, what do we do?" I whispered to Kat.

"Well he's never been defeated, but heroes have escaped. Laistrygonians are fast, There's no way we'll be able to outrun them. But, I think Odysseus had his ship hidden, and when the giants attacked, they were close enough to get away."

"But Festus is all the way at the helipad, how are we supposed to get there?"

"I think Leo is already working on that," said Calypso. As we were walking, Leo tapped patterns on the metal railing. Hopefully Festus could hear Morse code from 200 feet away. The giant halted in front of a food court. This was an area of the ship we hadn't seen. More monsters stood in lines waiting for their meals. They looked even worse than the lunches at my high school; which is saying something.

"Demigod stew sounds delicious right now," he said.

"Well sorry," said Leo. "Looks like you won't have any to make it with." Festus burst into the food court, sending the doors off their hinges. He lunged at Antiphates and wrestled him to the ground. The two of them rolled around crushing tables, and smashing monsters. I wrenched my shotgun out of a dracaena's hands and sliced her with my bayonet. The others followed my lead. Cody sliced dracaena to dust along with Kat. Calypso sneaked around stabbing at monsters from behind with her knife. In the chaos, Festus managed to temporarily subdue the giant. He was buried in piles of splintered tables and chairs. Festus jumped toward us on his hind legs like a kangaroo. We climbed on and headed out the doors. We heard a loud, ROOOAAAR! Antiphates had emerged from the wreckage. He was surprisingly fast. He lumbered toward us. I thought we were going to make it, but he grabbed hold of Festus' tail. Festus tried to take off but Antiphates was just too heavy. Leo rummaged in the side pouch on Festus' neck. He pulled out a glowing green jar, Greek fire.

"Hey, let go of my dragon!" Leo yelled. He threw the jar at the giant, but he caught it with his other hand.

"Ha! You'll have to do better than tha—" He didn't get to finish his sentence. I fired a shell right at the jar, and it exploded into a column of green flames. He let go of Festus and tried to douse the flames. The fire quickly spread, and set the monsters that had followed them outside on fire. The whole ship would eventually be engulfed into flames.

"What about all of those mortals!" Kat yelled over the wind.

"Something tells me the Mist wore off!" I yelled back. Sure enough, the mortals were all running and screaming. They were lowering life boats, and throwing on life jackets. They would be fine, scarred for life, but fine. We flew east, away from the boat and toward our destination.

"Well that was a nice 3 hour break," I said, glancing down at my watch. Kat sighed,

"Of course when we're having fun it has to be ruined by monsters."

"Well that's kind of their job," Cody reminded her.

"You know, now that I think about it, it was pretty weird that all the clothes fit us." Kat said. "It's all my fault! If I just remembered sooner,"

"Hey, no one blames you." I said. "The fact that you even remembered it at all saved our lives." She blushed and said,

"Thanks Dean," and did something I never would have expected. She kissed me on the cheek. I found myself the same shade of red that she was. Cody looked absolutely livid. His eyes showed complete jealousy. I had no idea what Kat was playing at, but it was working. He looked down at the sea below us and didn't say a word. Cody actually liked Kat back! Who would've thought? Well now he probably hates me. I tried not to make eye contact with him for the rest of the ride. It wasn't hard; he was looking down toward the sea pretty much the whole time.

It was dark before anyone spoke again.

"Italy should be coming up soon," Leo said.

"Pizza" I said sleepily. Kat and Calypso had already fallen asleep. I thought Cody was sleeping too but he was still in silent mode. Festus touched down in a large city with a couple of big mountains in the distance. I saw a sign that read, Naples. Now this city I knew. It had some serious history. I remembered learning about a nearby city, Pompeii, that had a huge eruption that killed thousands of people. But the volcano hadn't had a serious eruption in a while. I kind of thought it was dumb to build cities around volcanoes, but hey, if they like getting their homes destroyed I can't stop them. After waking up the girls, we roamed the streets looking for somewhere to stay. As we walked, I looted some people's handbags so that we would have enough money to get a couple of hotel rooms. We ended up choosing a hotel right at the base of the mountains. I would've preferred not to stay at the one right under the volcano, but I came up kind of short on my looting. Guys took one room and the girls another like normal. We crashed on our bunks, I said goodnight to the others. Cody sort of just grunted. I closed my eyes and waited for the dreams to come.

I was in an area I've visited before in my dreams. Delphi, I thought. The only problem was that the place was falling apart. You know, more than normally. There were wide cracks in the marble floors. More columns had crumbled to the ground. I was surprised that the dome on top could still stand. In front of me stood the lord of darkness himself, Erebus. Even in my dreams, I felt like I would never see light again. At the center of the trashed temple, a dark orb floated above the ground. Inside, I made out billowing green smoke, just like the stuff that kids who have seen the oracle in action have described. It tried to take shapes but the darkness restrained it. This is it, I thought. This is how they were containing the spirit of Delphi. They attacked at their roots. Just like the giants had tried with the real mount Olympus last summer. Erebus was muttering something to a dracaena.

"Yes, the boy is arrogant he will fall for the bait."

"But what would happen if the Hydra killsss the boy?" The dracaena hissed.

"The Lernean Hydra has specific orders, he will definitely distract the boy if he's anything like his father. Just make sure he goes alone so that we can overpower him, and bring him hear for the sacrifice."

"As you wish, my lord," said a short squeaky telkhine. They were talking about Cody. What were they going to do? I heard something about a Hydra, and a sacrifice. I couldn't let it happen. The telkhine had already left to deliver the message, and I sat here unable to move. The more I struggled the faster the Telkhine seemed to go. I turned my gaze back toward Erebus and I almost had a heart attack. He was standing right in front of me, nose to nose. He was kind of short for a god.

"You eavesdrop for the last time, son of Hermes!" He slashed at me with his hand and darkness surrounded me. I woke up to the sound of the hotel room door clicking shut. Cody's bunk above me was empty.

XV

Cody

I didn't care at this point. It was time to prove myself. I know what some kids at camp thought of me when I first showed up. They thought I would never be as good of a hero as my father. My dream showed me the Lernean Hydra, the one my father killed, lurking near the top of the volcano. I would destroy it, and show them all. I'll show Kat and Dean what I'm really capable of. I didn't realize it at the time, but the real reason I was going up there alone was because of Kat. I had completely snapped when I saw her and Dean on Festus. I didn't even realize how much I really liked her, and now I was too late. By morning, I'll trudge back down this same path with one of the Hydra's heads.

After hours of climbing up the steep mountain, I reached the apex. My hands were sore, and bloodied, and I was having the time of my life. I looked down into the crevice of the volcano. There wasn't any lava, just solid rock. Steam seemed to rise up from under the layers of rock. Behind me, I heard a snap of twigs. I whirled around rolling my die. My bow was drawn, already notched with an arrow. The woods were silent. I waited at the top of the cliff aiming through the trees. Then there was a huge cracking of branches. It sounded as if a car was backfiring over and over. The Hydra's heads loomed over me. It pushed petrified trees out of the way like they like they were props, meant to be broken. The Hydra let out a wail and its many heads tried snapping at me. I fired a volley of arrows, aiming for the eyes on each head. I was a good shot, but not a child of Apollo. Some of my arrows hit their target, blinding a few of the heads. Others imbedded themselves into its necks. I made sure to steer clear of the puddles of Hydra blood. It may have only pained my father, but it would most likely kill me if I came in contact with it. I switched my bow back into a die and rerolled. I held my wicked sharp double edged sword. A head snapped at me and out of reaction, I sliced it off. I cursed, I was fully aware that by slicing off one head, it will grow two more. It lashed out again crushing a boulder next to me, and sending it flying off of the edge of the cliff. I heard a large crack and a hiss. The boulder had broken through the stone in the volcano. I suddenly remembered how my father had used fire on the severed heads to stop them from reforming. Lava should work just as well. In the distance I heard shouting.

"Cody it's a trap!" Dean yelled. I saw them stumbling up the path. Dean was followed by Kat, Leo, and Calypso. I didn't know what Dean was talking about, but I didn't really care. The Hydra hissed, almost like it was saying, are we fighting or what? I was about to attack when Kat yelled,

"Cody, stop!" I froze for a moment. "You can't beat it on your own, even your dad needed help!" She was right. In the old stories, my dad had help from his nephew when he had defeated the Hydra. I hadn't realized how stupid I was being. I was acting like a little kid, complaining when things didn't go my way. I was trying to prove that I was better than… better than Dean, and I felt guilty.

"I…I'm sorry," I said as they reached me, panting. "It's my fault—"

"It doesn't matter now," Dean pumped his shotgun. "We're already here." I felt grateful despite the fact that Dean was one of the reasons why I was up here in the first place. I silently forgave him. It hurt but it was something I'd have to live with. The Hydra tilted its heads, looking confused. Dean, Leo and I charged at it. More monsters had appeared out of nowhere. Dean was right, it was a trap. But why? What do they need with me? Kat and Calypso held off the new monsters. Mostly telkhines, and dracaena. They held weighted nets, no doubt to capture me. But they weren't expecting an entire party of demigods. Leo flicked his wrist and flames danced across his fingers. Dean and I started slicing off heads while Leo shot fire at each of the headless stumps. No new heads sprouted which was a good sign. The immortal head of the Hydra whimpered and complained. It couldn't fight anymore. We didn't have time to admire our handiwork. Monsters were overwhelming Kat and Calypso. Even Festus was having trouble with the endless waves of monsters. We joined the fight but pretty soon we would be completely surrounded. A stupid idea popped into my head.

"Leo, make sure Festus is ready to pick us up!" I yelled. I backed up to the top of the volcano again. The Hydra lay just where we left it. I lifted its heavy body over my head and threw it down into the volcano. Everything seemed to be in slow motion, it was almost as if the monsters around us stopped fighting to watch. The volcanic rock crumbled under the Hydra's weight when it landed. The Hydra fell followed by chunks of falling rocks. For a second, nothing happened. The monsters came back to their senses. They began to advance on us when there was an earthshaking, BOOM! The whole mountain shook, white ash shot up out of the volcano. Leo whistled to Festus, and he ended his brawl with a confused looking Cyclops. He landed next to Leo, blowing fire and baring his fangs to scare off monsters. But there was no need. The monsters were running from something else; the volcano. It was as if there was an earthquake. Everything shook. We stumbled over to Festus and climbed on. We took off, soaring over monsters fleeing for their lives. In the distance I could hear something that sounded like a tornado siren. When we reached the city, the streets were packed with thousands of people. They were loading bags and suitcases in to cars. Leo pulled out a radio and turned it on. It came out muffled and in a foreign language. Leo smacked it and the feed changed to English.

"No one knows what caused the sudden eruption of Mount Vesuvius," said a reporter. "But officials say that it is dangerous to be in the area, and have ordered a mass evacuation. The volcano has been known to release exceptional amounts of ash. It's most famous eruption was back in the year 79 A.D. when…" Leo switched off the radio.

"Guys…I'm sorry, it's all my fault," I said.

"No one blames you dude," said Dean.

"Don't expect me to kiss you," I said back. Dean laughed a little, and then went silent. No one said anything for a long time.

XVI

Kat

I screwed up, big time. I meant for Cody to just get a little jealous, (which worked at first) but he went on a total Hydra killing rampage. He managed to take down the same Hydra that his dad killed, and cause multiple city wide evacuations in just one night. I felt sort of like Cody being tricked by Erebus was my fault. He probably would've asked for our help if I hadn't pulled that stupid stunt. Maybe he didn't even notice what happened between Dean and I, maybe he simply wanted to fight an immortal hydra on his own. My head swam with thoughts. Dean had woken us with a start this morning. He burst in yelling, "Cody's gone!" He barely explained his dream. He just mentioned how it was a trap, and Cody took the bait…alone. Why he went to fight a Hydra alone? I still didn't know. We left Naples far behind.

"Dean," I started. "You mind telling us about that dream you had?" Cody perked up, suddenly interested.

"Why not?" He shrugged. "I saw Erebus and he was at Delphi. He's trying to do something; something evil. He was luring Cody so that he can use him as a… as a sacrifice." He finished. I looked up at Cody in front of me. His expression was hard to read.

"That doesn't make any sense," Cody spoke up. "I'm just… me"

"I never met your father," Calypso said. I had almost forgotten that she was here. She went on, "But I heard the stories, He was a great hero, but had a fatal flaw just like anyone else." She paused for a moment.

"He had a couple actually from what Hermes told me. His emotions took control of him, and he had a large ego. Both are bad."

"What are you trying to say?" said Cody.

"I'm saying, that you have similar flaws, your emotions controlled you, and you thought you could challenge a Hydra single handedly." The way she said emotions made me think there was more that Cody wasn't letting on. When she said it Calypso sort of flashed her eyes at me. I squeezed his arm reassuringly, but he didn't acknowledge it.

The weather compensated for our mood. The clouds were black, and hung low. Being on a metal dragon didn't really reassure her from getting struck by lightning. I was worried that our old buddy Kaikias was feeling vengeful. I mean, he was kind of made a fool of. Like one hit to the head? Seriously?

I didn't realize how quickly time had passed. Leo had announced we'd be landing in Greece shortly. Delphi seemed too close now. Before it seemed so far away, but now, well it seemed like it was only a couple of doors down. Well maybe if those doors were maybe 200 miles long each. Festus touched down in a city called Pilos. There were rocky beaches, and hills lined with trees. Buildings stood around winding streets.

We decided not to waste time with hotels. Dean stole a new tent from a store, and we found a nice clearing in the woods to make camp. The guys left again, in search for food; which left Calypso and I on tent duty. We worked silently for a while, attaching rods, and raising the tent. Then Calypso spoke up,

"You must keep your distance from Cody."

"Um, excuse me? He's my friend," I said, frowning.

"Is he?" She said, "Or is he more than just a friend?" I found myself blushing.

"So? What does it matter if we're close?"

"Like I said before, emotion is dangerous for a child of Hercules. If Cody were to love someone very dearly, it can alter his judgment—" Calypso started.

"Wait a minute," I cut her off. "You're not saying… You don't mean me…"

"Yes you," she said. "Cody displays a dangerous amount of emotion towards you. His love for you could change his decisions, you could be used against him by enemies." I let that sink in for a couple of seconds. All this time, Cody actually liked me back. But thanks to fatal flaw, if we ever did start dating Cody would be doomed. I felt jittery and excited, but at the same time hopeless; like the butterflies in my stomach were being shot down by Dean's shotgun.

XVII

Dean

Man, not talking to Cody was starting to drive me crazy. He answered questions with one word, and didn't even make eye contact. All over one lousy kiss on the cheek.

We walked past aisles stacked with food. I just needed to speak with Cody privately so that I can tell him what's going on.

"Hey Leo," I said. "Cody and I are gonna look down this way." Leo nodded reading the label of a bottle of tobasco sauce. I pulled Cody into an empty aisle, where cereal was stacked to the ceiling.

"Hey, man" I grabbed him by the shoulder. "Back at the princess Andromeda—"

"Its fine," he said shrugging off my shoulder. "I mean you've known Kat a lot longer anyway." He started to walk back down the aisle. I decided that telling him the truth was better than letting it go. If I screwed this up for Kat, she'd probably kill me.

"That's not it," I blurted out. "You see the thing is, the only reason Kat did that, was to get your attention." Cody stopped in his tracks.

"You're kidding," he said. I could tell he was trying not to smile.

"Dude she's totally into you, Kat and I are just old friends." I said. He clapped me on the shoulder and looked a lot better than he had all day. Leo wheeled a cart into our aisle.

"You guys done with your bro talk yet?" He asked rhetorically.

"What are you talking about?" I said. The rest of our food excavation was actually fun. Cody was talking to me again and Leo went on about how good his tacos were.

We arrived back at the clearing with bagfuls of taco meat and tortillas. To our surprise, the girls still hadn't managed to put the tent up yet. It sat in a heap of tousled tarp and bent connecting rods. Leo sent us to help them while he started a fire. It honestly wasn't that hard. I had a feeling they were having their own "bro talk" or whatever girls call it. "Girl talk" I guess. But whatever Calypso told Kat, it seemed to make things worse. She looked shaken, and she made sure that she was always working on the opposite side of tent as Cody. But Cody was as happy as can be. He helped pitch the tent, humming as he worked.

Leo called us over when the tacos were finished. They tasted great, but Leo left for the tent before we could tell him how much of a master chef he was. He said that he needed to make some "last minute touches," whatever that meant. I was surprised that no monsters had shown up to eat us, but I didn't say anything. No need to jinx it.

A half an hour later Leo unzipped the tent and waved us over.

"How are we all going to fit in there?" Kat asked.

"I don't know, guess it'll be tight," said Leo. She stepped in and gasped. The rest of us filed in behind her. It was huge, for a tent. The ceiling was high enough so that we didn't have to duck our heads. There were two separate bedrooms, and a full bath. The zip up door opened up into a sort of living room with couches and tables. I found my mouth hanging open.

"Leo, how—" Cody started.

"A magician never reveals his tricks," he said. He dropped a screwdriver into his tool belt.

XIX

Cody

I was excited. More excited then I've been in a long time. I mean all this time Kat was actually into me. How could I have not noticed? Despite how happy I was, I decided to wait to make anything serious until this quest was over. No reason to get my hopes up if I'm going to get sacrificed, right? I woke up groggily, rubbing my eyes. I didn't even realize that everyone else was already up and ready. Leo was outside prepping Festus, Dean was counting his shotgun shells, Calypso was making sandwiches and packing bags, and Kat was sharpening her sword. I hadn't realized how close we were. It may be over 100 miles away, but when you're flying on a metal dragon, there isn't really any traffic. I sat on a chair next to Kat.

"'morning," I said. She smiled at me and put her sword down on the table.

"Just one hour away," she said.

"From our deaths,"

"Maybe,"

"Listen, Kat, whatever happens, I just want you to know that—" I didn't get to finish.

"Let's go!" Dean yelled. "Time to show Erebus that there are darker parts of his—" Dean was cut off too. Apparently Calypso didn't like any cursing. We all climbed on to Festus in our usual order. Leo had collapsed the tent into a square the size of a deck of playing cards in about 3 seconds. I thought about talking to Kat again on the ride there, but when we were all on the same metal dragon, there wasn't much privacy. She eyed me expectantly, but I didn't budge. I remembered what I told myself earlier. It wouldn't be fair to her. If this goes the wrong way at Delphi, I could die, and it would probably make ours the shortest demigod relationship of all time. I still had no clue why I was needed for the sacrifice. My dad was Hercules, not one of the big 3. It's not like I was a big important demigod like Percy, or Jason. They had both been a part of the most important quest of all time and were both born leaders. None of it made sense.

Kat kept on prying throughout most of the flight. She gave me the occasional nudge or a glamorous smile. I almost broke a couple of times, but I would just pinch myself.

"So what do you guys want to do once we get back to camp?" Dean asked.

"C'mon man, not now," I said.

"Tough crowd," he grunted. The last thing we wanted to think about was camp. It was so far away, it almost felt like it didn't even exist. I didn't know if we'd ever make it back there. We were about to fight a god, and I didn't like our odds. Sure we beat Kaikias, but he was a joke. Erebus stood for something a lot more powerful, darkness itself. He was helping Ouranos rise just like the giants helped Gaea. I looked up at the night sky, and tried to imagine how we could ever defeat something that big. Wait a minute. Night sky? It was no later than nine in the morning.

"Guys," I said. "The sky," They looked up. Leo looked confused for a moment and then looked at his watch.

"I didn't even notice," he said. Below us, ancient Greek ruins scattered the mountainside. It almost seemed peaceful except for the fact that all the buildings were two thousand years old and crumbling to dust. I saw an empty amphitheatre.

"Set us down there," I told Leo. Festus landed steadily in the center ring. We slid off his back. I half expected to be ambushed, but nothing came. We followed paths made for tourists. The whole place seemed deserted.

"There!" Dean yelled. "From my dream." He pointed at a circular building that must've been impressive two thousand years ago. Most of the columns had crumbled all the way to the ground. It definitely violated some kind of safety laws. The only strange thing about it was the writhing ball of green smoke in the middle. Dean started running toward it.

"Dean, stop!" I yelled. Too late. One second I was looking at Dean running toward the ball of smoke, and the next everything went black. I couldn't see a thing, I felt my eyes with my hands to see if they were opened, and they were. This was pure darkness. A void so black, and so deep, that no amount of light could pierce it.

"Cody," Kat whimpered. She grabbed my hand and held it tightly. Under normal circumstances I may have been embarrassed, but I doubt anyone could see. I heard heavy footsteps. It seemed as if hundreds of monsters had surrounded us.

"The time has come, heroes," a deep voice said. A thin outline appeared in front of us. I couldn't make out any specific features, but he was tall, and looked as tough as an ox.

"Your blood shall be spilled here, at the birthplace of prophecy, and lord Ouranos will rise again. Here I will teach you to fear darkness, like children."

"But that's just the problem," Leo's voice said. "There isn't going to be any darkness." He tried to summon flames but nothing happened. Erebus' laugh boomed across the mountainside.

"Now now, any real hero should know that pure darkness can only be penetrated by pure light." This is it. We were doomed. We were going to die fighting monsters that we couldn't even see. Suddenly, a blinding light came out of nowhere behind us.

"Which is why I am here," a new voice said. The black void around us partially dissipated. It was like I was wearing sunglasses inside, but I could definitely see. Calypso looked in awe at the man behind us. She answered my question before I could ask it.

"It's Aether, the god of light." Everything about the guy was bright. He was the complete opposite of Erebus. He wore spotless white clothes, and his teeth were as white as white could get. He was young, looked about college age. Erebus made a growling noise, reminding us that he was still here.

"How dare you," Erebus said. "You cannot interfere with matters like—"

"So what you're doing is different?" Aether cut him off. "You're helping one of the most powerful primordial deities reawaken, and here you are interfering with these demigods trying to stop it." Erebus was furious.

"You are a sorry excuse of a son," he spat.

"And Nyx believes that you are a sorry excuse for a husband," Aether retorted.

"Oh don't get me started on your mother," The two gods continued arguing leaving the monsters and us, confused. These guys had some serious family issues. CLANG! One of the Telkhines dropped their sword. Erebus stopped insulting his son.

"Oh have you not killed them yet?" He asked. There was a silence for a second and then all of the monsters charged. We went in full battle mode. Kat released my hand and started slicing monsters immediately. I rolled my die on to number six and I began cutting my way through rows of monsters with my twin blades. Dean was firing away with his shotgun. When one would get close, he would stab it with his bayonet. Leo and Calypso were back to back. Calypso was stabbing at dracaena with her bronze knife, and Leo made a ring of fire, keeping the monsters at bay. He was protecting her, probably like I should've been protecting Kat. I wiped that thought out of my head. If I was distracted, someone could get hurt, including Kat. Sadly my body didn't want to listen to my brain. It made sure that I was fighting just an arm's length away from her. She looked beautiful when she fought. I found myself staring at her, stupidly.

"Cody!" She yelled. She threw her sword right past my head. It impaled a Cyclopes in the stomach. Focus, I thought. I willed myself to move farther away from her. On my left, Erebus and Aether were still bickering, and throwing insults. I slipped away from the fighting and crept toward the crumbling temple. There the spirit of Delphi was confined in a glassy black orb the size of an exercise ball. Thick chains that I hadn't noticed before were wrapped around it. It was padlocked at two ends, stretching to opposite sides of the temple. I swung my swords at one side of the chains. It should have cut it cleanly in half but my swords glanced off like they were squeaky toys. Then a muscular blonde dude appeared in front of me,

"Hey there nephew, looks like you're having some trouble," He said.

"Apollo," I recognized. He nodded and said,

"These chains were a prototype designed by Hephaestus himself, no doubt to trap his wife. Thankfully he informed me of the weakness so that I can tell you. The chains can only be broken by two people working together, so you'll need some help."

"I figured that much out." I said. He held up his hands.

"Just doing my job," he grumbled. Then he disappeared in a flash.

XX

Kat

The monsters wouldn't stop coming. It was like they were one giant hydra. The more you killed, the more would take their place. At one point we thought we had almost won, but our hopes were extinguished when the next wave appeared out of thin air, literally. I had been through the battle for Manhattan, and I was there when we almost had to fight the Romans, but something about this scared me even more. Just like Percy stopping Kronos, or the seven demigods of the great prophecy stopping Gaea, defeating Erebus was all on us.

The army had pushed us back to the amphitheatre. Festus came to help, but it didn't do much. The strongest of them all ganged up on him. There were Cyclopes, Laistygonians, and even big blue Hyperborean giants. He seemed overwhelmed but Leo didn't seem worried about him. Just when it seemed that Festus was buried in a dog pile of monsters, Leo yelled,

"Festus now!" Flames exploded out of every nook and cranny in Festus's hide. I could feel the heat from a hundred feet away. The monsters were instantly incinerated. Then he flew over to us and Leo gestured us to climb on. Once we were in the air we circled around the battle. Festus shot more flames down at the enemy. I looked back and my heart dropped.

"Guys where's Cody?" I yelled. They looked around confused.

"I thought he got on," said Dean.

"There!" Calypso pointed out. Cody was struggling with the chains around the spirit of Delphi. While we were distracting the army, he was busy saving Delphi. Hot and smart, I thought. Okay that was a little weird. The monsters that we had left below started to notice him.

"Leo put me down there so I can help him, and then you guys hold off the army." He nodded and Festus dipped down toward the temple. When we were close I jumped off rolling over my shoulder on the ground and coming up on my feet. I couldn't believe it worked. I ran behind him and tapped him on the shoulder. He whirled around, raising one of his swords. Then he paused,

"Oh it's you," he looked relieved. "I need your help to break the chain, only two heroes together can do it."

"Who told you that?" I asked.

"Apollo,"

"Makes sense," I was about to take my place on the opposite side of the ball when Cody yelled,

"Get down!" He tackled me to the ground, sending us sprawling down the steps of the temple. A volley of arrows had flown right over where I was standing. We stopped at the base of the stairs. We were all tangled up, and Cody was stuck on top of me. Our noses were touching and everything seemed perfect, except for the raging battle around us. The sound of Erebus and Aether's arguing brought me back to my senses.

"Um Cody, Spirit to save, battle to win,"

"Right," he muttered. He unhooked himself and helped me up. He turned around to go back up the steps and I almost threw up. An arrow was stuck in the back of his right shoulder. His shirt looked like it was a portrait made by a first grader with red paint.

"Oh my gods," I grabbed his shoulder and looked at it closer. It was pretty deep. He looked back to see what I was doing. He shrugged and said,

"eh I probably won't feel it until later." He continued up the steps and I shook my head. I stub my toe and cry (sometimes), and he gets shot and just walks it off. We positioned ourselves back on either side of the orb.

"On three," Cody said. "One, two, three!" We swung our swords down at the chains, and they split apart. The orb fell to the ground and shattered. Green smoke rose from it, making a faint hiss as it rose into the air. Then it disappeared, leaving nothing but a green tinge in the air.

"NOOO!" Erebus was yelling across the battlefield. Aether stood against a wall with his arms crossed.

"Four worthless demigods and, well I don't know what to call you," he looked at Calypso. "AND YOU STILL COULDN'T KILL THEM!" The army of monsters cowered and began to share nervous glances.

"ARGHH!" Erebus yelled and with a sweep of his hand the whole mountainside went black, and then flashed back to day time. The army of monsters was gone, and so was Erebus. It was over, I hoped.

"We're alive," exclaimed Dean.

"Yes, thank you lord Aether," said Calypso. He simply nodded.

"And you, lord Apollo," Cody added in. Apollo appeared behind Aether.

"By all means," he said. "It is you who helped me. Without you I would still have the oracle problem on my hands, and Zeus would still be angry." Thunder rumbled in the sky above.

"I'd best be on my way," said Aether. We nodded and looked away. There was a bright Flash that still left spots in my eyes, and he was gone.

"Well we did it, but how are we going to get back?" Dean pouted. Cody shrugged,

"I guess the same way we got here." Apollo stepped forward,

"I think I owe you some quick transportation." He took out a pair of car keys and pressed a button on them. There was a loud beep-beep and then a red Maserati appeared on the dirt path.

"It's always too small," muttered Apollo. He pressed another button and it changed into a Honda Odyssey. It was a nice minivan, but I would've rather taken the sports car for a spin. Apollo pushed us all in and then gestured to Cody to take the driver's seat.

"Hmm, you're about driving age." He studied Cody. "What do you say little nephew, how about taking the sun chariot for a spin?" Cody looked back at us. I just shrugged, but Dean was nodding his head so fast, I thought he would lose some teeth.

"Um, maybe another time," Cody said.

"Alright, suit yourself," Apollo sighed. After we strapped in, Apollo put the car in gear and it began to rise up into the air. Soon we were accelerating across the sky at blurring speed. Apollo pulled a cell phone out of his pants pocket and plugged it into the aux. I was expecting some pretty good tunes since Apollo is the god of music and all. But horrible old Christmas music played through the speakers. Apollo looked back at us with a smile. Dean just shook his head.

"What?" He said. "You know, Christmas in July." We all groaned. We were back over the open ocean, which almost made me sick thinking of all of the trouble we ran into down there. Cody almost dying in a plane crash, being stranded in the middle of nowhere, monsters attacking the boat, the boat exploding. Jeez I was on route for developing PTSD. Leo and Dean were talking about something in the back. Dean held the blue SD card from his destroyed camera and showed it to Leo. He inspected it for a couple of seconds, and then handed it back to Dean nodding. Calypso stared down into the ocean below us. Cody was nervously tapping his leg. It was kind of hard to believe it was over, it seemed too early. We would be home in a matter of minutes, and nothing had stopped us.

"Welcome back," said Apollo. I looked up through the windshield and saw the valley of Camp Half-Blood before us. The same old cabins were laid out in the familiar Greek Omega. Lava poured down the rock climbing wall. Satyrs played sand volleyball, and campers were standing in the packed bleachers watching a chariot race. Dean practically jumped out the window and began kissing the ground. My knees felt like Jell-o when I stepped out of the van. Before we knew it campers had ditched the chariot race to come see us. There was a lot of "welcome backs", and "good job at not dying". Trina came running over to me with a big smile on her face,

"I got claimed!" She said. I grabbed her by the shoulders saying,

"Oh my gods, who is it?" Hundreds of flowers shot up under our feet. She smiled and said,

"Welcome back sis." I couldn't believe it. I hugged her and laughed, Trina was my sister all along. We were soon swarmed with campers asking for the full story with every detail, but Chiron saved us,

"Now, now, please let them get some rest, they just arrived. They will be willing to tell their story in full another time." Some of the campers looked disappointed, but they ended up clearing out. A couple of Apollo kids had already bandaged Cody up. The wound where the arrow had hit looked a little green, but he had a smile on his face. Behind him I saw Piper and Jason practically tackle Leo to the ground. Then Someone I hadn't expected to see walked up to us.

"Rachel!" I said. "You're back,"

"Yeah, I had no idea it was you who went on this crazy quest until I got back," said Rachel. Cody looked a little confused.

"Cody, this is Rachel Dare, our oracle." I introduced him. Cody stepped forward to shake her hand, but the moment their hands touched Rachel straightened up, and her eyes glowed green. Green smoke spilled from her mouth, and she spoke,

An endless night shall reign throughout day,

The sky itself will rise but sway,

A single choice with a child's last breath,

And a hero's fate worse than death,

Rachel finished and slumped into the arms of the waiting campers behind her. They had a stool at the ready.

"W- what was that?" I stuttered.

"If I am correct," said Apollo. "I would say that that is yet again another Great Prophecy."

XXI

Cody

I heard arguing before I walked in, but when I stepped inside, the room went silent. The war council was held in the rec room of the big house. The senior counselors of each cabin were cramped around the ping pong table seated on metal folding chairs. I was worried that I would have to tell the whole counsel what had happened, but Kat and Dean were allowed to come. They were already inside and had grim expressions on their faces. Chiron stood in the back. He was so tall that his head brushed against the ceiling.

"Now Cody, if you please," he said. I nodded and started telling the whole story. I started straight from the beginning, the train, the gray sisters, then the accident on the plane, how Leo and Calypso had saved me. Then Kat told everyone about how they managed to rig an ATM to spew enough cash out for them to buy a boat. How we met up on the ship, and how I single handedly destroyed three Laistrygonian giants. Dean took the reins and talked about Kaikias, and the Princess Andromeda.

"The Princess Andromeda?" Percy looked confused. "You mean the same one that Beckendorf gave his life to destroy?" Leo nodded and said,

"We think the Princess Andromeda itself is a monster nest, and that's why it was able to return. They come back, just like the monsters." Percy slumped in his seat and looked angry enough to send a tidal wave at Disney cruise ship. Annabeth grabbed his hand, but his mood didn't change. I continued on about Pompeii, some of the campers exchanged glances, they must've seen what happened on the news. I briefly went over how we rested for a night and then went off to Delphi. The battle took a lot of explaining, I left out the part about when I saved Kat by knocking her down a flight of stairs. She caught my eye, but I continued. I broke down how we had destroyed the chains, when Erebus left, and up until Rachel had given the new prophecy.

"Yeah about that," said Katie Gardner. "A lot of it doesn't make sense." The campers silently agreed.

"Well," said Clarisse. When she spoke a jolt went down my spine. "An endless night shall reign throughout day- that makes sense. Erebus is still working for Ouranos, so he'll try to keep everything dark so they'll have the advantage." The campers nodded. Jason spoke up,

"And the sky itself will rise but sway, I think that means that we'll take down Ouranos in the end."

"But the third line," Annabeth said. "A single choice with child's last breath, I'm thinking this choice is made by a powerful demigod. We need to find him or her, before Ouranos."

"Don't forget about the last line," said Will Solace. "And a hero's fate worse than death, that doesn't sound good." All Hades broke loose after that. Campers were arguing about the meanings of the lines. There were chairs flying across the table. It was mostly the Ares kids arguing. Chiron ended it with a stomp of his foot, he didn't say anything but Connor Stoll perked up.

"Who's going to lead this quest then?" There was a short silence, and then Piper said,

"Cody," all the campers looked back to me.

"Why him?" Somebody shouted.

"Because Rachel only told the prophecy once she made contact with him. He's connected to it somehow." The campers nodded in agreement. I didn't know if they meant it or if it was just Piper's charm speak.

"Then it's settled," said Chiron. "Cody I will discuss more of this with you tomorrow, please now to bed everyone." The war council adjourned. Leo pulled me aside after we exited the rec room.

"Hey I was thinking about the quest, and I've got some pretty neat ideas for tools you could use on the quest. They'll take me a while but when I'm done, you'll be satisfied."

"Thanks man, I know they'll be great," I said, walking back to the cabins.

My cabin was just how I had left it. It was considerably clean except for the weights strewn across the floor. I picked up a one hundred pound plate and tossed it like a Frisbee into the corner. It felt no heavier than a piece of cardboard. I spread out on the single bed, and slowly fell asleep.

Not a single dream came to me that night, and I was grateful. I had enough stuff to worry about, like my meeting with Chiron. We had no lessons today, due to a camp wide volleyball tournament. It seemed silly, since we had such big things ahead of us. I guess everyone just needed to try to act like life was normal, for a demigod.

Kat found me at breakfast that morning, she slid next to me on the bench at my table.

"We're still going to win this thing, right?" she said. I looked at her, confused.

"What are you talking about?"

"Do you really not remember? We signed up as a team for the volleyball tournament." It all started coming back to me, long before we went on the quest.

"Well we'll have our first match after lunch, we should practice so that we don't get humiliated," she walked back to her table. The rest of the morning went by slowly. Kat had us in the sand volleyball pit working on moves. She was crazy; she wanted us to practice straight through lunch and up to our match. But I talked her into letting us cool down. I wanted to head over to the big house to talk to Chiron, but it didn't seem like I'd have enough time.

Our first match came all too quickly. I guess a lot was riding on us for this tournament; other campers were placing bets on us. If we lost we would make a lot of people angry. Practically the whole camp had come to either watch or compete. Our first match was with these two Apollo kids. I didn't know them, but I've seen them drain enough threes in basketball, so I knew that they were serious. C'mon dad, I thought. You're the god of athletes, help me out. The Apollo kids started with the ball, they served and Kat returned it. We went back and forth for a while, setting each other up and spiking. One of the Apollo kids made a spike just out of reach. Something jolted inside of me, and I made a crazy dive for the ball. Miraculously, I hit it up before it touched the ground, and Kat managed to get it over the net for a point. After that we were a whole lot more confident. Our setups were perfect, and we didn't give up a single point. We ended up totally wiping them out, 25-0. We plopped down on a bench and helped ourselves to refreshments.

"We might just have a chance," Kat said. She looked absolutely gorgeous in nothing but her orange camp T-shirt and shorts. I smiled and said,

"We just might." Our next couples of matches were pretty easy. Dean and Trina put up a good fight, but we managed to take them down. Then playing Connor and Travis Stoll almost seemed like a joke. I had no idea how they made it as far as they did in the tournament. They tripped over each other and never called the ball. Once or twice they actually ran into each other and clunked heads. At one point the match was forced to an end because they had knocked themselves out.

In the semifinals, Jason and Piper were our opponents. Piper would yell out commands with her charm speak like, "don't hit it." And I would freeze and stare at her stupidly like all the other dumb guys. Kat ended it by quickly growing some flowers and shoving them hard into my ears. I couldn't hear anything, but it kept Piper's voice out of my head. We overcame them in the end when Kat made five perfect serves in a row, and ended the match.

"We made it!" I told her.

"It's not over yet," she said. She pointed to the volleyball pit. Percy and Annabeth had just won their match, which meant that they would be playing us in the finals. Percy and Annabeth had won each of their matches with no contest. It was going to be tough, but I had high hopes. We were given an hour break and I decided to go have that meeting with Chiron.

When I arrived at the big house, Chiron was already on the porch, compacted into his wheel chair. He was in the middle of a game of pinochle with a bunch of satyrs and a short plump man. He was reading off of a list of wines. All of the satyrs had scooted away from the man, so I assumed that he smelled very bad.

"Ah Mr. D this is Cody, the boy I was telling you about," Chiron said.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've heard all about him, the brat's brat. Hercules goes on and on about how great his son is," the plump man who must've been Mr. D said.

"My dad said that?" I asked.

"Oh he doesn't shut up!" Mr. D said. "Honestly I sometimes wonder why he was allowed to be a god in the first place."

"Wait, do you know my dad?"

"Know him!" Yelled Mr. D, The satyrs around him jumped. "I have to deal with him every day! Can't get in and out of Olympus without him rubbing in how wonderful his boy is!" Suddenly I realized why the satyrs were so afraid of him.

"Wait a minute; you're a god aren't you?" I thought of god names with the letter D. "You're Dionysus." I said stupidly.

"Of course I am, jeez you're no smarter than your father either." He rolled his purple flaming eyes.

"Now now, Mr. D, Cody asked a fair question," said Chiron.

"Oh please," Mr. D grunted. "Now run along to your little volleyball game, Cory."

"What are you talking about? Chiron didn't you need to tell me something?"

"It can wait," Chiron admitted. "You should enjoy your free time while you can; it won't last long. I heard that you and Kat were quite the team. Now hurry or you'll miss your own game." I wheeled around and looked at the clock through the window. The game had started a minute ago. I hadn't even realized how much time had passed. I leapt from the porch, and ran as fast as I could toward the volleyball pit. I slid in to the sand panting. They had been waiting for me to start the game. Someone grabbed me by the shirt, trying to pull me up. Kat was standing over me.

"Where have you been?" She hissed at me.

"Sorry," I said. "Lost track of time," She cursed and then took her position. Percy and Annabeth were already waiting. They started with the ball, and Annabeth served. Kat and I were good, but they were on a different level. They had amazing chemistry, and they always knew where the other was going to be. I guess years of fighting alongside each other carried over to volleyball. The only thing that we were really riding on, were my spikes. I would hit the ball so hard, that if anyone tried to hit it, they would probably be feeling it for the next couple of weeks. But Annabeth was smart and would always be prepared for that situation. She made sure to hit the ball to Kat first rather than me, so that she couldn't set it to me. Kat wasn't too bad at spiking herself; she caught them off guard a couple of times.

Before we knew it, the score was 25-24. We were winning, thanks to an amazing hit from Kat. Percy thought it was going to go out of bounds, but a gust of wind made it seem to curve back in and land right on the line. I swear I saw Jason wink at me from the side lines. In a close game like this, we had to win by two points to end the match. So it came down to this. I was sweaty and tired, but my hands shook with excitement. It was hard to believe that a little volleyball tournament could make me this nervous. I served the ball hard toward Percy. He took it well, but sent it flying backwards. Annabeth went running for it. I didn't think she was going to make it, but she dove for it and it just barely made it over the net. Kat saw it coming, thank the gods. She set it up towards me, and I jumped up, swinging my arm and spiking it towards Percy. It landed at his feet in a small explosion of sand. We had won. The whole camp cheered, and Kat tackled me in a hug. I looked into her eyes and thought, what the heck? And I kissed her, right there in front of the whole camp. The campers roared louder after that. We held hands as a couple of satyrs placed golden laurels on our heads. Then we got drenched in Gatorade. Behind us, Dean and a couple more of his cabin mates stood carrying empty jugs. Kat laughed and tried to ring out her hair. Percy and Annabeth came over to congratulate us on the win. Kat and I got separated, and Percy took me to the side.

"Hey man, I just wanted to tell you. If you need anything, and I mean anything, just let me know. I have a lot of experience on quests; I know how overwhelming they can be."

"Thanks Perc," I said. "I think I'll be fine with the quest for now. But, I might need some dating advice." Percy laughed and said,

"Now that… I can't help you with." He shook my hand, and went off to find Annabeth. I was just about to go look for Kat when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around and found Kat smiling at me.

"C'mon," she said. "Let's get out of here." She grabbed my hand and pulled me away from the sea of campers.

XXII

Cody

We sat back on the same branch, of the same oak tree the day we got our quest. The whole valley of camp half-blood was spread out before us. Campers milled around, enjoying their free time. The familiar clang could be heard from the forges, and canoes cut across the glittering lake. Kat leaned next to me and I put my arm around her waist.

"This is crazy," I said.

"What is?" Kat looked up at me.

"The fact that I have to lead this quest is. The next Great Prophecy is going to be screwed up by me."

"Oh c'mon, you'll do fine. You did great on this last one," She said. I shrugged my shoulders, this whole thing seemed insane to me.

"Tell you what," She put her arms around my neck. "The summer's almost over, and you can't really start this quest until Leo is done with those tools he promised that would help you. So, why don't you come with me to my dad's farm for the fall? You need to clear your head." She was right, I needed it badly; to get back to the real world, and live like a normal person for a while.

"Sounds good to me," I smiled. "Now we just have to figure out how Chiron will approve." Her smile vanished for a moment, and she straightened herself up.

"We'll figure something out," she said. "Right now, let's enjoy these last couple weeks of summer, together." She kissed me, and I felt like I was melting. She must have felt the same way because the tree went full bloom. Flowers sprouted from the base of the tree, and the leaves turned bright green.

"Hey there they are!" Someone yelled. Dean stood at the base of the tree with a group of campers.

"Guys I finished the scrapbook," he said. "Leo helped me get the pictures of the SD card." Kat didn't even stop kissing me. With a wave of her hand, the branches closed tightly around us, forming a comfortable private cocoon. The voices below were muffled out. Something nagged in the back of my mind, with the prophecy and the fate worse than death. But I was too busy kissing a beautiful girl. My life was nowhere near normal, but right now it felt pretty darn perfect.