"Hey Spongebob, Annabeth! Burgers. Let's go." Thalia said bursting into my cabin. Annabeth and I were just hanging out enjoying the time together. A few days ago we defeated Kronos and all was good. Oh great. I got a new name. I thought.

We looked at her and must have given her a puzzled look because she said "Remember? Before the war I said we had to get burgers some time. And it's time now. So let's get moving." Thalia said impatiently as she motioned for us to get out the door.

Thalia led us out of the camp and shoved a black piece of fabric into both of our hands that looked like a tie, or maybe a handkerchief, or maybe a-

"Blindfolds." Thalia said. "Put them on. This place is a surprise." I looked to Annabeth and then to Thalia, whose face said 'put them on or I'll make you', and then I looked back to Annabeth and she shrugged. We put them on and Thalia led us through the crowded streets of Manhattan pulling us by the wrist. This was probably very unsafe but I didn't really have a choice.

"Ow! Sorry." I said. I had probably said sorry in the wrong direction but I couldn't see. That was like the tenth 'ow' I let out in five minutes.

"Sorry, Sea Monster. Want to just take the subway? Might be easier." Thalia offered.

"Yes, please." Annabeth begged. We walked some more and I walked into some more people, lampposts, and accidentally kicked some poor puppies. I'm sorry, but I couldn't help it. If you're going to be mad, be mad at Thalia. She should have warned me. After like, a dozen times five more apologies, we turned into the subway system. Well actually, first we had to go down the stairs to enter the subway.

"Subway." Thalia announced.

"Um, Thalia? I really don't think this is safe, you know, to go down crowded stairs with blindfolds on." I said sounding a little nervous. I was kind of hinting for her to let us take the blindfolds off, but she didn't get the hint.

"Yeah, yeah, it's safe. Now step," Thalia ordered.

I took a step and so did Annabeth.

"Step," Thalia lead us. "Step… Don't step!" she yelled so loud that I was startled and I was half leaning forward to take another step and half trying to stay back. I had lost my balance and fell down the rest of the stairs. Luckily, I'm invincible.

I don't know how, but Annabeth managed to get down quickly without a scratch.

"You know, I should have just fell down the whole stair case to save time." I said.

"Agreed, now we got to move or the train will leave without us!" Thalia said. This time she pushed us onto the train cart and we, well I don't know about Annabeth, but I was wedged between someone who put on probably five different perfumes and colognes; the smell was interesting… interestingly awful, and someone who was wearing a ton of feathers that kept blowing off into my face. The cart was crowded and hot and somewhere where I didn't want to be.

"Annabeth? Are you okay?" I asked.

"Yeah. Where are you?" She asked.

Thalia came, pulled my wrist and cut through the crowd of people. She stopped me and said "Relax, you're right beside each other."

My hand tried to find Annabeth's hand. But my hand just moved around in the air hoping to find Annabeth's. It must have looked like I was either trying to slap somebody, or I just really stunk at miming. Well, to tell the truth, I really stunk at miming but that's not what I was attempting.

Thalia let out an 'ugh' and she took my hand and I'm guessing Annabeth's too and stuck them together, but not like lacing out hands together. She more like put our hands right in front of each other and I felt her fingertips along mine. I grabbed her hand and pulled her closer towards me.

"Thalia, remind me never to let you take me anywhere." I said sounding probably scared.

I couldn't see her face, but I'm sure she rolled her eyes.

After a few minutes of underground traveling, I said "So is Artemis going to hate me?"

"Nah, well, maybe." Thalia replied.

Before I had time to reply saying something about how all the gods hate me, the subway doors opened and Thalia shoved us out.

"More stairs?" I asked groaning.

"Well, it's either that, or the escalator. Your pick." Thalia said.

"I pick the stairs, less dangerous."

This time I grabbed the railing and took my time. It took me two minutes to walk up ten stairs. Finally we were out of the subway and walking on the busy streets again. We crossed the street, or maybe we jay walked because there were tons of car honks. But we made it across without getting hit and we were standing in one spot for a really long time.

"Something wrong? Are we lost?" I asked. The second sentence didn't sound much like a question. It sounded more like an annoyed statement.

"No, we're here" Thalia said.

I took off my blindfold and gave a sigh of relief.

"Ah, we made it here in one piece." I said laughing.

Thalia gave me a glare, but a joking kind of glare and smiled. The place looked so cool. There were booths that were black and white, there was a music player in the corner, and circular chairs that swivel in front of a long table. It looked like a fifties diner.

We sat down at a booth. Annabeth and I sat on one side and Thalia took the other. "So how's camp been?" Thalia asked.

"Great." Annabeth replied.

Thalia put on a smile before she asked the next question. "And how are the lovebirds doing?" She said the word 'lovebirds' in a teasing tone referring to us.

I blushed and neither of us said a word. Thalia just laughed and the waitress cam over on roller blades. We ordered a burger and fries each. We ate out burgers and talked. It was nice to be just hanging out with friends, but that nice feeling didn't last too long. Something burst through the glass windows of the diner, ruining all of the posters that hung on the glass windows promoting their new special, burgers and fries. It was a hell hound. The mortals immediately looked over to the shattered glass.

"Aww, look!" One of the waitresses said! "That puppy is so cute!" She put an emphasis on the word 'so'.

The hell hound came over to our table and would have smashed us flat, but we dodged just in time, so all he got was a mouthful of my burger.

"Hey! That's mine!" I yelled at the dog.

Annabeth and Thalia got up and pulled me away from the hellhound. "I'll buy you another, now let's go!" Annabeth said pulling my arm.

Some of the customers were taking pictures and making 'aww' sounds. The hellhound turned around and found us running out where the w used to be. it chased after us and we ran as fast as we could. Unfortunately the hellhound caught up with us in two steps. Then I pulled out Riptide, Thalia took out her bow and arrows but I'm not sure where they came from, and Annabeth brought out her dagger that was hidden in her hair. Her hair was in a bun and she used her dagger as chopsticks. Right there, I felt myself staring at her and noticing how beautiful her hair was and how it curled and shined in the sunlight until Thalia called out "Earth to Percy? Hello? There's a hellhound here." and that snapped me back to concentrating on defeating this monster.

So tell me what you think and reveiw please! The next part is coming soon. I hope you enjoyed it.