Disclaimer: I do not own PJO, blah, blah,blah, this is my sisters idea but she gave it to me, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,! Disclaimer done! Boo-ya, to writing!

B/N (Beta's note): In case you couldn't read the above because of Derek's 'blahs', then he mentioned that this story was originally my idea. I'm just being nice enough to let him use it!

PS: Three years after TLO, TLH never happened.

Chapter One: Never Argue With a Son of Apollo

"That's not how you shoot an arrow, stupid!" I basically yelled at my friend, Cooper. I don't really get this: He's a son of Thanatos and I'm a son of Apollo and he's telling me how to shoot a bow?

Yeah, and he's Batman.

"Yes it is! I'm the awesome one, remember?" snapped Cooper and a laugh caught in my throat.

"Sure you are. Yet, when it comes to bows, I'm ze masta!" I said proudly, waving my bow in the air.

"Your just a big show-off and you know it," he stated.

"Oh yeah?" I asked. Yes, we're best friends that fight a lot. There's a lot of those, right? Okay, maybe not, but we're demigods. We're allowed to be strange and weird if we want to be.

"I can school you with a bow any day," Cooper bragged. His dark eyes seemed to pierce into me and it felt so weird. He shrugged. "It's true."

"Wanna bet?" I asked, grabbing an arrow from the quiver.

"Oh shoosh yeah," said Cooper, grabbing a bow with a grin. We made our way to the arena and readied to prove our skills. I mean, friendly competition? Yeah, I know, we're kind of a messed up friendship but who cares?

The way to the targeting range was as simple to me as the back of my hand (Which I know realize I don't know to-very-well…) and we were there in mere nanoseconds (Not literally…).

He stood in the lane by me and I took deep, slow breaths as I pulled the string back as far as I could. I mumbled under my breathe "One…Two…Three…FIRE!" and at the same time, our arrows flew at the target.

This time, literally, in mere nanoseconds, the arrows hit the target with a loud THUD! We stood there for a few seconds, checking our arrows positions. Both ours seemed to be around the bulls-eye area but we were too far to actually tell.

"I say I win," I bragged.

"I say you lost by a country mile," Cooper retorted.

"Huh?" I asked, all confused.

"Florida's in the south, I was born and raised in the south, and that's a South saying, okay?" he assured and my head kinda titled while I forced it to nod. I know, for me it's weird hearing all this south stuff but he was my best friend so I had to accept it.

"Really, I say we go see that I whooped your tail," I said smuggly, placing my bow on a stand that was by me. Cooper nodded, mimicking my previous act. Then, we started our way to the targets. The closer we got, the more I saw the similarities between our two locations. I mean, how could I get beat at my own game? I'm a son of Apollo for crying out loud!

Okay, I think I'm just getting too worried.

Yet, the closer we got, the more reason I seemed to have the right to worry. For a quick thought, I knew I was gonna get my butt whooped by a son of Thanatos, then I decided to keep my chin higher, and march into it like I was some sort of soldier.

When we got there, it was still even harder to tell which was closer to the bulls-eye. The distance between our targets made my eyes mess up and go a little crazy in the brain. I mean, what did you except from an ADHD kid? I kept shifting my eyes, back and forth, between the two targets. I couldn't tell to much difference. Then, I decided to do it the hard way.

I slowly peeled his target off the wooden background and did the same to mine. I lined mine with his, corner to corner, and got a clack marker. I placed a dot were my hole was on his and folded them back. His was a few centimeters far to the right, just the way I liked it. I smirked and whispered: "I 'PWN'."

Cooper stared at me with his Thanatos-glare, and eventually turned it into an eye roll. Then a horn blew and we looked over to the dining pavilion, realizing what it meant. We shrugged and headed off for dinner.

About halfway there I noticed a head of bobbing dark wavy hair. No doubt it was Kinsey, my only other friend. She noticed us and waved from the crowd, her electric blue eyes seeming to spark. I smiled back and worked my way through the crowd to her. As I past so many people, my shyness kicked in and I felt like crawling into a hole until they left. Yet, I didn't see any holes around here!

"Hey," Kinsey said as I finally made it to her.

"'Sup?" I replied.

"Nothing really...been taking classes. I saw you totally beat Coop." She kinda chuckled and Cooper glared at her far worse than he had done to me earlier. Kinsey glared right back, and Cooper stuck his tongue out at her like a toddler.

An Aphrodite girl named Cloe McLeave exited her cabin and started walking like she was on a cat-walk towards us. She had her hand in that weird thing girls do up to her ear with a purse in it, smacking gum the whole way. About halfway here, she spit it into a bush and walked up to us smiling. Let's just say, she puts the 'I' and 'Diva'.

"Move," she snarled.

"How about you go around?" Kinsey asked, motioning with her hand around her body.

"Too much energy. Seriously, sweating would ruin how good I looked!" Cloe retorted, putting her hand on Kinsey's shoulder and shoving her to the side. Kinsey fell straight on her butt, her mouth agape. She closed it and used the awesome Zeus powers to mentally zap the most important thing to Cloe- her hair.

It poofed up like the humidity had just raised up to a hundred percent. Wow, I've been spending so much time with Cooper, his weird sayings are rubbing off on me! TEXAS! Sorry, had to get that out of my system.

Cloe screeched like a hyena and her hands when straight to her head, shocking her hands as well. She dropped her electrocuted pink designer purse and turned to Kinsey. She growled and showed her cat-like finger nails. Now, we were the only people that weren't in the dining pavilion. Just us three and her.

Then Cloe's snarl lightened. "We'll finish this later," and with that, she turned around and strutted off yet again.

"Wow," said Kinsey, finally standing up.

"Let's go eat. I'm starving," said Cooper, going from zero to sixty in four seconds. Soon, he sat at the Thanatos table and me and Kinsey made our way to our tables. It was kinda lonely without my two best friends considering I don't exactly like to talk to anyone else. I looked over to the Poseidon table to see my all-time hero, Percy Jackson. We fought side-by-side three years ago with the Titans. Maybe not side-by-side, though, but I fought in the same battle. At least I can say something like that, right?

That's when I noticed that the certain son of Poseidon was nowhere to be seen.

Okay, it may be a little weird, but maybe he was off with Annabeth? No, she's at the Athena table... This is confusing me. But Annabeth had a worried look on her face. She trembled as she unfolded a piece of paper and attempted at reading it. Her eyes moved as she read and when she reached the last word, she gasped.

She ran up to Chiron and whispered something into his ear. Chiron's eyes also widened and he whispered something back. Together, they walked from the dining pavilion to the Big House. I looked at each table my friends sat at and studied their confusion. They seemed to studying mine too. With a simple nod, we got on all fours and started to sneak out.

Soon, we got to the door of the Big House. I pressed my ear to the door and only caught one line of the conversation: "Chiron, he's gone!"

And that's when my entire world crashed around me, changing forever.

Good? Bad? Ugly? Which one are you? Nice cliffie? Review?

NOTE TO FLAMERS: If you flame me, I will put you on a stick and roast you over the flame YOU provided me with! Ta-Ta for now!

Write on,

Derek