"What do you think they called us for?" Annabeth asked curiously as she and Percy trekked up the floating path to the Throne Room of the Gods. They had received a missive not twenty minutes ago, telling them both to report to Olympus for a talk with the entire Pantheon, and had immediately hightailed it to the Empire State Building.
They didn't know what could warrant such a congregation, bar perhaps Kronos rising up from the depths of Tartarus, but the chances of that happening twice in one week were slim.
"Dunno. Maybe they've decided to take a more active role in our lives?" Percy proposed, and then they both took a good ten-minute break to laugh themselves hoarse, collapsed and shuddering on the golden path.
Once they had gotten themselves under control and wiped the tears from their eyes, they glanced at each other and started laughing again.
By the time they staggered through the doorway into the Throne Room, they had been reduced to supporting each other and giggling incoherently.
"Uhm...greetings?" Zeus tried, slightly disturbed by the clearly-insane demigods. Perhaps they were piling the quests on a little thick lately...
"H-hey there," Annabeth snickered, "You wouldn't, b-by any chance, be planning t-to take on a more active role in our l-lives, would you?"
This had the interesting effect of setting them off giggling again, disturbing the Gods even more. By the time they had managed to calm down again, Ares had sharpened, polished, and otherwise cleaned twenty-six of his weapons, Aphrodite was applying makeup to other Goddesses, having achieved perfection on herself some time ago, and Hades was playing with a sliver of shadow like a cat would bat at a laser pointer.
"Anyways!" Zeus boomed once he noticed the demigods had gotten control of themselves again, "I believe you know why we summoned you here?"
"Not really, no," Percy answered unconcernedly, then grinned and said, "Though I wouldn't mind having a little chat with Aphrodite."
His grin turned into a dark glare aimed at the Goddess, who inched back in her seat nervously as he hissed, "Interesting love life indeed."
"Er, yes, well. No, you may not have a chat with Aphrodite. We've called you here because we've issued another quest," Zeus proclaimed, but Percy and Annabeth only blinked in confusion.
"And?" Annabeth prompted, and Zeus adopted a look of exasperation.
"And you haven't gotten started, so we thought we'd give you a little incentive," he explained, as if it were the most obvious thing on Olympus. Percy's eyes lit up with a dark glee at this, but Zeus snapped, "No, you may not have a chat with Aphrodite!" and the raven-haired mortal pouted.
"Not every prophecy is about us, you know," Annabeth pointed out, "I hear Clarisse la Rue, daughter of Ares, is just itching for something to do."
"Yes, but we don't want Clarisse la Rue. We want you two," Zeus informed them imperiously.
Annabeth and Percy merely stared at him for a moment before glancing at each other, and then finally turning their gazes upon Ares.
"You gonna take that?" Percy asked him.
As if he had been waiting for permission, Ares kicked off the ground and back flipped in his seat, bending the back of it to launch himself directly at Zeus.
The King of the Gods shrieked girlishly and ducked out of the way, and through some odd space-time warping native to Olympus, Ares crashed into Athena instead.
The goddess of wisdom screeched like an owl that had gotten a few feathers plucked and pushed the God of War off of her, rocketing to her feet and summoning a drakon-bone spear to jab wildly at him with.
Zeus jumped to his feet and tried to restore order, but Athena then turned on him and sent him cowering to a corner. In all the chaos, nobody noticed that Percy and Annabeth had slipped out some time ago.
Two weeks later, a letter arrived for Percy and Annabeth from Zeus, Ares, and Athena. It said simply, 'Well played.'