Joyful screams and laughter echoed around the playground as seven half-bloods played to their hearts content.

A young dark-haired boy sat on a bench, nibbling a jumbo-sized pack of blue peanut M&Ms. His lips and fingertips were stained bright blue. From a distance, he looked like a regular kid lazing around, but his aqua eyes had as special sparkle in them that gave him away as a powerful demigod.

A girl with shoulder-length blond curls and a checkered dress stood in front of him. She frowned, her wise grey eyes fixated accusingly at the candies in the boy's hand like they had cooties.

"Percy!" she shrilled. "What in the name of the gods are you eating?"

Percy mumbled something like "oork ew lines."

"Huh?"

"Porcupines," said Percy dryly after swallowing. Annabeth, the blonde, huffed at the sarcastic response. "Let me explain you a thing, Seaweed Brain. Each M&M contains over three types of food coloring that increase your risk of cancer at an early age. So with each gross candy you stuff in your dirty mouth, you decrease your life span by -"

Percy cut her off. "Thanks, brainiac. Enough school for a day." Annabeth was seven, his age. It was freaky how much she knew. He shoved another fistful of M&Ms into his mouth and chewed loudly. Annabeth rolled her eyes and skipped to the sandbox. Let him eat more! she thought. He was warned. It won't be her fault when he gets cancer. (She only had a vague idea of what cancer meant.)

Not far from the candy devouring machine (aka Percy), a pretty toddler sat on a swing, waiting for someone to push her. Her chocolatey locks were tied up in two pigtails on either side of her head, so she resembled a cocker spaniel. She was dressed almost entirely in soft pink, from her pigtail holders to her frilly socks.

"Can someone help push me?" she called. Her voice was like a bell, sweet and impossible to resist. As a result, all six youngsters on the playground dropped whatever they were doing and turned to her. They padded over to her with their arms stretched out, like they were either going to knock her out, or push her. Percy's M&Ms dribbled through his open pack as he shuffled to the girl on the swing.

A boy with glazed blue eyes got down from the nearest slide. He was taller than the rest, and he wore a yellow and white striped tee that matched his cropped blond hair. His electric sneakers flashed as he walked over to the girl in pink. He spoke blandly, like he was reading from a script: "I will push Piper."

He then blasted Piper away with an extremely strong gust of wind.

Piper was a screaming little pink bird in the sky as she shot over the playground, scaring a few sparrows out of the way and then plummeting straight into a tree. The now unoccupied swing creaked and swung violently.

Five kids gaped at him in utter shock. "Jason!"

Jason winced. "Oops. My bad."

Piper squirmed in her not-so-comfortable place in among the leaves. She screamed: "You owe me five lollipops for that, Jason!" and "I think I have a boo boo!" or "It's so high up here!"

Annabeth turned to Frank, a chubby Chinese boy. She gave him an order without needing to open her mouth.

Frank immediately understood. He started wailing. "But I don't wanna," he groaned. "I'll feel itchy. Itchy and tired. I don't like feeling tired or furry or feathery or scaly. I want to be me, me, me!"

With every word, he changed gradually. As the young demigods watched, his arms extended and sprouted feathers. His mouth curved into a small and sharp beak. His legs shriveled into talons.

Frank had unwillingly turned into a baby eagle.

"Look, a birdbrain!" snickered Leo, a lean and short Spanish lad. He had dark baby curls framing his face and wore kid's suspenders. He bobbed up and down on the balls of his feet. His fingers twisted and fiddled away at random stuff he pulled out of his kid-friendly tool belt - tissues, pipe cleaners, plastic hammers. This was a boy who spent most of his time at the playground making a ten foot tall sand fortress (with Annabeth's help) and inventing a ginormous mechanical thingumajig using the roundabout as the main gear. He still wasn't exactly sure what it did.

Frank the Eagle cawed unhappily. He was probably trying to groan. Annabeth smiled at him and patted his downy head. "Good bird. Please get Piper down."

He complained in Caw and Screech before he flapped his wings to take off. He accidentally batted the youngest girl, Hazel, to the ground with his wing. The five kids on the ground cheered as he flew clumsily to Piper's tree.

What happened next was so revolting it was emblazoned into the young half-bloods' minds for life.

The moment of truth was cut short when a filthy rat with matted brown fur scampered between the feet of the children. Hazel yelped. Her apple-shaped face instantly turned green. "Yuck yuck yuck yuck!" she squealed.

Frank apparently could spot the vermin with his super powered eagle eyesight from his height and swooped down. He stretched out his claws - he wouldn't! He would! He did! - and caught the rodent in a vice-like clutch. The furry pest squealed and squeaked for dear life. The kids just watched Frank fly away with their mouths hanging open in absolute horror. Hazel covered her eyes and muttered over and over, "Gross. Gross." Even Piper, who still remained tangled in the branches, looked scandalized.

Leo was the only one who didn't seem affected. Instead, he was busy grinning, like he was never going to let Frank forget this moment for the rest of his human life. He yelled "Enjoy the rat steak, Frankie!" as Frank disappeared from sight with his afternoon snack. Leo turned to the others with a mischievous grin lighting up his face that surely meant trouble. "Is he going to chew or swallow that thing? Birds can't chew right? So probably swallow. I can see him going om nom nom with that mouse, slurps it like spaghetti, the tail hanging out from his beak -"

Hazel couldn't take any more. She moaned and ran away with a hand cupped around her mouth, looking very green and very sick. Annabeth glared at Leo. "That was really nasty."

"So is Frank's food."

Jason, who hadn't said anything since he literally blew Piper away, spoke up tentatively, with a slight hint of guilt in his voice. "Should... should I go get her?"

Percy shrugged as he picked some of his M&Ms from the ground. "Why not?" he said before popping one partly soil-covered candy into his mouth. Annabeth wrinkled her nose but didn't say anything. She knew Percy would just ignore her. He might even offer her some to spite her. She wasn't tempted.

"Good luck Superman," Leo joked. "Do you want a cape?" He whipped out a pair out blunt-edged scissors from his tool belt. "What color?"

Jason frowned. "I hate capes." With that, he lifted himself up into the air.

Percy muttered, "Or maybe a green cap with a red feather. We could call him Jeter Pan." Leo cracked up and gave him a high-five.

Hazel came back to them. Her cheeks were a bit ruddy. "Whats happening?" she asked.

"Jason's flying to get Pi - " that was as far as Annabeth got before Jason conked his head against a tree trunk. He winced and slumped down.

"George of the Jungle, watch out for that tree!" Leo fake-gasped. Annabeth smacked him hard on the head. "Not funny!" she scolded.

Hazel had a concerned look in her reflective gold eyes. "What if he's hurt?" she inquired worriedly.

"Hard heads aren't easy to crack," Percy piped up.

"Or big heads," Leo added.

They both earned a whack on their heads by Annabeth and Hazel.

"Everything's okey dokey!" called Jason from the bottom of the tree. As he limped back to them, Leo suddenly suggested (jokingly, they hoped) that he burn the tree down. Annabeth almost gave his noggin another whap, but Leo ran and hid behind Percy, who was still nibbling at his treats. Jason nearly said that he could chop down the tree by striking it with lightning but then thought better of it. Percy said that he could scatter M&Ms below the tree. Four pairs of eyes looked at him in disbelief.

"That's just stupid," Hazel said.

A bush behind them rustled, and Frank burst out in his five-year-old, one hundred percent human toddler looked really embarrassed about the whole mouse-eating thing. "Did it taste good?" Leo asked out of curiosity. Frank nodded, than blushed harder as Jason, Hazel and Annabeth made gagging noises. Percy almost choked on an M&M.

"Can you do it again?" Annabeth questioned. "Er, the changing thing, I mean."

Frank appeared to concentrate, but he only managed to make his cheeks redder. In fact, his face got so puffy that the others got scared and made him stop. They genuinely thought he was going to explode.

Piper was still yelling "Help me!" in her tree. She looked more annoyed than scare now. When she saw that they were still discussing how to get her down, she muttered "dweebs," before attempting to shimmy down the branch. She could save herself, couldn't she? Halfway down the branch, she heard a sharp snap and fell to the ground hugging it.

Apparently, nope.

The piece of wood didn't do much to slow down her fall. Fortunately for her, she landed on a soft patch of grass. She couldn't say the same for the little orange daisies beneath her, though.

Meanwhile, 'Team-Save-Piper' were still throwing in plain weird rescue ideas. They were so engrossed in their discussion that they didn't even notice Piper's crash.

"Build a trampoline!" Annabeth suggested.

"Get a crane!" That came from Leo.

"Get a ladder!" Hazel said excitedly.

"Watch it go boom!" threw in Jason.

"Get bug repellent!" Frank mumbled as he tried his best to scrub out rat fur from his tongue.

"Buy more candy!" Percy's idea wasn't so helpful either.

With twigs and leaves in her pigtails, Piper skulked over to them and said in her most commanding voice: "Turn around."

With obvious surprise on their faces, they did.

"Stand in a circle and pull the earlobes of the person in front of you." They obeyed while muttering "ow,ow,ow." Annabeth tugged Percy's earlobes with so much force Piper almost pitied him. Almost.

Jason whimpered: "Can we stop?"

Piper replied: "Say please."

"Please?"

"No."

This went on for a few more minutes before Piper was satisfied. Her little not-quite-saviors' earlobes were cherry red and looked really, really sore. Serves them right, Piper thought with a tiny smirk.

"And Percy, give me some clean candy too, please."

They played on for several more hours, a few mishaps happening along the way.

Leo sneezed flames and almost turned Frank into a toasted marshmallow.

Piper got back on her swing, but when Jason offered to give her another (gentler) push, she ran as far as her little legs could take her.

Percy flooded Hazel's sandcastle embellished with tiny rubies with the help of a drinking water fountain. (That was clearly no accident.) Hazel almost brained him with a chunk of silver.

Frank (unintentionally) turned into a worm and nearly got snatched up by a bird. ("Eaters get eaten," Leo said.)

Jason led the "Percy and Annabeth sitting in a tree" singalong behind their backs. Piper, Frank, Leo, Hazel and he hid under the slide when Annabeth gave Percy a lecture about the benefits of eating vegetables. The girls barely contained their giggles when Leo made kissy faces.

Coach Hedge cam to herd the kids back home at sunset. As usual, he wore a baseball cap and a tee with his furry satyr legs exposed. He swung his ever-present baseball bat around as he barked out orders. "Alright kiddos, stand in line, get behind me and - die!" He rushed after a bird, slashing the air with his baseball bat like a madman (or more fittingly, madgoat).

Annabeth turned to her friends. "I'm not dying," she decided.

The black soil beneath an oak tree stirred. Dead leaves, grains of sand and earth gathered to form features on the ground - closed eyes, a nose, a softly smiling mouth.

Those lips did not move, but a soft whisper sliced through the dead silence of the playground.

Your tragic fates await you, my dear pawns. The smile on the ground grew larger, colder, more frigid and sinister.

Soon each of you will have a part to play in my plans, and using you as stepping-stones, I shall rise. The sleeping face started to sink back into the earth, slowly, slowly, but its smile stayed.

But not now, the voice whispered. I will wait.

Leaves rustled hauntingly. A cold chill settled down on the empty playground. Three words echoed softly, over and over and over again.

I will wait.