A/N: Ah, finally! The Quest for the Golden Fleece, sequel to The Quest for the Master Bolt. Notice a pattern? Or maybe I'm just too lazy to come up with a good name. Sorry it took so long to put it up! Thanks to everyone who read The Quest for the Master Bolt for coming back to read the second story in Annabeth's point of view. But I bet you don't even remember it. :P Extremely sorry it took sooo long—more than a year; I know, I know, I'm a horrible procrastinator. Soo if you are reading this after reading the first one, I can't thank you enough! And if you didn't read the first one, then hello! I'm PJOBookWorm. This time, I'm co-authoring with carameltootsieroll, so the chapters will sadly come slower. But this is our holiday present to you. So happy holidays, everyone! Oh, and if you didn't know, I found out… I can actually reply to reviews! Ah, so sad. How did I not know that before? So, if you're wondering why I never replied to a review before, now you know. Sorry I never replied but now I will!

Disclaimer: We do not own the Percy Jackson and the Olympians characters or series or anything. Shocking, right?

The Quest for the Golden Fleece

Chapter 1

"Ready! On my mark!"

Shouts rang through the night, accompanied with scattered screams and clangs. The air was cold and still. Feet hit the ground heavily and people darted from shadow to shadow.

"Fire!"

Arrows shot through the air, whizzing like comets, and crashed down, some zapping the grass and some zapping dark figures looming the grounds.

Deep growls erupted from the figures' throats and vibrated through the air. Heavy stomps shook the ground.

"Retreat!"

The people backed up, their orange t-shirts shining brightly through the dark, emitting a flame of hope among the horrified campers. Despite their scared looks, the campers stood firmly on the ground, drawing their weapons.

The stomps crushed the grass and monstrous shadows drew near. Arrows screamed as they rocketed through the air, plummeting towards the monster. The monster just growled and with one swat of its meaty hand, knocked the arrows away.

The monster advanced on the campers, and they backed away, their screams echoing through the night.

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My feet pounded down on the ground, crunching leaves and snapping sticks as I ran. My ponytail came loose and my blonde hair flew around. The sun slowly sank, hiding behind the trees, and the moon leapt up into the sky, casting shadows in the dark forest. I glanced behind me, and, seeing nothing, slowed down to a stop to rest. But only for a few seconds. Otherwise, the monsters would catch up.

And to think this all started when I had that dream. Even before I woke up, I knew. Camp Half-Blood was in danger.

I closed my eyes, replaying my dream in my head. The monsters. The screams. It was bad. Really bad. How much time was there left? How much faster did I have to run? How—

Suddenly, I heard the crackling of leaves. I leapt up and glanced around the dark forest warily. It had to be another monster. With a snarl, a hideous creature jumped out at me, and I took a step back, drawing my knife and glaring at the monster. Its clawed fingers snatched the air around me and its scaly tail whipped back and forth.

Where was my baseball cap? I looked around frantically and saw that the cap my mom had given to me for my birthday was lying traitorously on the ground three yards away from me. It must have fallen off when I was running. Great. Now I didn't have my invisibility cap. Keeping my eyes on the monster, I slowly inched towards where my cap had fallen.

But the monster seemed to have other ideas. "Now, where do you think you're going?" it cackled. "Surely not to camp." With a mad look in its eyes, it swung its tail out and knocked me to the ground. It reached out to claw me, but my reflexes made me back away and the monster ended up clawing my jeans.

Leaping up, I stuck out my knife and charged the monster. I stabbed the knife onto the hand that was coming out to claw me again. The monster wailed, and its tail whipped out and knocked me over to the ground, resulting in my cutting my chin in the process. I silently cursed myself for being so careless about my cap. The monster was now towering over me with a wicked grin on its face.

"Interesting," it hissed, "a daughter of Athena?" It licked its lips. "I haven't eaten one in a long time..."

"And you're not about to," I shot back. The gears in my head turned and I remembered the monster's weakness. Like others of its kind, its weakness was a little spot inside its left ear. I threw my knife at the monster. It worked. The blade jabbed right into the ear.

The monster howled in pain and clutched its ear. While it was preoccupied, I quickly ran for my cap and jammed it on my head, turning invisible. Meanwhile, the monster yanked the knife out of its ear and threw it on the ground like it was an omen. It turned around, hissing.

"Oh, demigod. Don't try to hide. I can smell you. I know you're here."

Normally, I would have fought back against the monster, but I was in a big hurry. I picked up my knife, stuck it in my pocket, and took off running again, choosing not to look back.

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The sun blinded my eyes and I squinted, raising my hand to shield my eyes. As I walked down the streets invisibly, avoiding bumping into people, I looked to my left, and then ducked behind a building when my eyes landed on something. Not another monster. Why were there so many? There shouldn't be that many monsters. I was a daughter of Athena, and while she definitely wasn't as non-threatening as Aphrodite, she wasn't so big and mighty that monsters wanted me dead. I needed to get to Camp Half-Blood soon, and the monsters were only slowing me down.

What's Camp Half-Blood? Let me explain. I'm Annabeth Chase, a half-blood, or demigod: half-human, half-god. And Camp Half-Blood is a camp for those like me. It is the only place where half-bloods are safe and can avoid being attacked by monsters. Why? Because it has a magical boundary: Thalia's pine tree. It permits only demigods through the boundary to camp, besides the counselors, or when someone inside gave another permission to enter.

I'd been at camp longer than any other camper, even the ones older than me. I had almost always stayed at camp year-round since I was seven. For this school year, instead of staying at camp, I was staying at my dad's house for the first time since what seemed like forever. My parents were now treating me… nicely, caring for me, protecting me. We hadn't exactly gotten along before, especially because of my stepmom, who treated me like a freak, demigod that I am. In fact, that's why I ran away from home when I was seven. I camped out on my own, kind of like what I was doing now, but with much less experience and no weapons. So when Thalia and Luke, also two half-bloods, found me, they, along with Grover, a satyr protecting them, took me in and helped me get to Camp Half-Blood, where they were also going.

Thalia and Luke were so nice and caring. They looked after me. They weren't just my friends; they were my family. And not like my family with my dad and stepmom and stepbrothers. They didn't freak out about monsters; they fought them. They taught me techniques for fighting and Luke even gave me a knife to fight with. They were my idols.

But sadly, both Thalia and Luke were gone now, though Grover stayed my friend. Currently, he was searching for Pan, as all satyrs did, but we hadn't heard from him in a long time and we were becoming pretty worried.

Luke. I thought he was my friend. I thought he was—but it didn't matter any more. I used to admire him, but he turned to the dark side, and I was letting go of all that respect I ever had for him.

And Thalia... As Thalia, Luke, Grover, and I made our way to camp, we had to avoid the monsters that were out to kill us. One day, we were so close to Camp Half-Blood that I could see it with my own eyes, but the monsters caught up. Then Thalia, the brave one, my best friend, stayed behind to fight the monsters and let us go on to safety. She did well, but she wasn't trained enough. Before Thalia completely faded away from us, her father, Zeus, saved her and turned her into the pine tree that now protects the camp's border. It was supposed to prevent the monsters from entering camp.

So that's why I had panicked when I had laid down in bed one night and closed my eyes, only to be greeted with visions of frightened campers, some screaming, some drawing swords and charging. And the thing that disturbed me the most was what they were charging at: monsters. How could monsters get into camp? The boundary provided against that. That's when I knew camp was in trouble. I had to get there and help as soon as possible.

I packed my backpack and told my family my plan, but my parents disagreed with my idea, saying it was too dangerous. They said if I dreamed about camp being in trouble, then I shouldn't go back there. Of course, they began caring about my safety at camp when I had to go back there the most. Frustrated and annoyed, I waited until night fell before leaving a note for my parents, then running out into the open.

It was dangerous, I knew. Going out into the open alone was like stepping outside with a flashing neon sign, saying, "Over here, monsters!" But at least it wasn't as bad as some other half-bloods had it. Take my friend, Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon. He can attract monsters wherever he went. Why? He's a son of one of The Big Three and therefore more powerful than most half-bloods.

Speaking of Percy, he was exactly the person I needed to see. An hour after I had left home, I remembered Percy, all the way up in New York. I had to alert Percy about going to camp. Besides, I needed backup. And, I hated to admit it, but Percy was good at fighting. I knew because last summer, I, along with Grover, went with Percy on a quest to retrieve Zeus's lightning bolt. Percy could fight well, but some other choices he made were pretty stupid, which was why he needed Grover and me to come along with him.

Since I had been on the run, monsters kept popping up everywhere. I could mostly avoid them with my cap, but some monsters have a more developed sense of smell than others and were able to sniff me out and know my general direction. What was weird was that during the school year, I had almost no monsters finding me at my home. Instead, they were gone. Somewhere else. And I knew, most of them had to be at camp.

All this brought me back to here, where I was currently leaning close to a wall and keeping on eye on the monster.

The monster was ambling around now, sniffing the air for my aura, but the mortals didn't notice the huge, towering monster and just kept walking, the mist blinding them. My eyes on the monster, I silently sped down the alley, behind the building, and ran down the block.

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Was this the right place? New York, check. East One-hundred-and-fourth and First, check. Apartment, check. Fifth floor, check. Oh, and there was the fire escape outside Percy's bedroom. Found him!

Before you say I'm a stalker, I'm not. I just have really good memory, and Percy told me where he lived once in case of an emergency. And I had to say, this was an emergency, all right.

I hurriedly climbed up to Percy's bedroom window. Sure enough, inside the room was a boy with dark hair, sleeping. It felt a little weird to see him after all this time, and certainly weirder to have to look at him through his window. I studied Percy, taking in his messy black hair and remembering his sea-green eyes. But then I realized he had a pained look on his face and was tossing and turning in his bed. Was he dreaming about camp, too?

Then, with a gasp, Percy woke and bolted straight up with a panicked look in his green eyes. He looked at the window and right at me. Did he see me? I looked down; my invisibility cap was working. Thank the gods. If it weren't, the people walking on the street below probably would have called the police, thinking I was going to break in. And Percy would have freaked out.

But before I could figure out a way to talk to Percy without giving him a heart attack, I heard his mom's voice, muffled because of the window, call, "Percy, you're going to be late."

Styx. There was no way I was going to watch Percy change. I decided now wasn't the best time to talk with Percy and climbed back down.

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Closing my eyes, I leaned against the door of the brownstone building that was across the street from Percy's apartment. I had never really gotten a good night's sleep since I had been on the run to get to camp. Just for future reference: bumpy grounds filled with sticks and rocks, plus trying to get to a destination as soon as possible were major obstacles for sleep.

And to think, if I hadn't closed my eyes for those few ten seconds, if I had closed them ten seconds earlier, the day would have been much easier.

But I had kept my eyes closed for too long. When I opened them, there was Percy, standing across the street and staring in my direction. I gave a sigh of relief and started making me way over to him—I couldn't take off my invisibility cap in case anyone else was watching—but Percy turned around and jogged away in the other direction.

"Percy!" I called after him, but he didn't hear me—though a woman walking her dog did. Looking bewildered, the woman sped up walking.

I had no choice to but to follow him. Where was he going? As he kept walking down the street, the throng of people grew thicker and thicker. I pushed through the people walking on the streets and kept my eyes on Percy. Finally, I realized where he was headed: the train station. Then school. Great.

Why was everything going wrong for me today? It was so unlike me to not have everything planned out so carefully. Maybe it was because I had left in a hurry, or I had been in a hurry to even get here and had to evade monsters at the same time. But whatever the reason was, it was costing me.

A/N: And that's officially the end of the first chapter! We hope you all enjoyed it! And reviews are always welcome—a holiday present to us? ;) Have a happy holiday everyone! How do you guys spend your holidays? And please come back to read the next chapter!