A/N: Disclaimer. Seeing as I don't want to go to jail anytime in my future, I'll say it quickly so you can read the story. -Halfblood.

Beta'd by Shopgirl152

I'd been waiting for today a long time. I never thought I'd be this excited to see Annabeth. I was driving my new, used 68' Ford truck. It was classy and broke down a lot, but it was mine. Now I was headed to Annabeth's boarding school; we had a date planned for the first day of summer. I was running way early, so I stopped by Greg's Flowers and got Annabeth a small rose clipping.

When I got to her school there were a bunch of girls waiting outside. Of course, none of them were Annabeth, so I had to go inside a boarding school of all girls. How embarrassing. Some of the girls,' stared at me and started whispering to their friends. I hoped they were commenting on how good I looked, but I highly doubted that because all the girls at my school think I look dorky. Of course these girls didn't get out much, so I had my chances.

I continued into the school until I stopped at the front desk. The place was pretty big. The desk was a semi-circle with plants on the corners, and a heavy set lady with one of those phones you put on your ears. She put a finger up and told me to hold on as she took a phone call. She glanced at me a few times, giving me funny looks. They sent me a clear message that I was out of place here.

"May I help you…sir?" Her voice was so rough it almost reminded me of Clarisse, except with a really dry throat.

"Um, yes. I'm looking for Annabeth Chase," I said, as a girl walked up to the front desk and got a prescription of some kind from another woman in a nurse's coat.

"Annabeth is my roommate!" The girl said in a voice incredibly high and perky. "You must be Percy. She talks about you all the time." At the last three words, the perkiness in her voice went down into a long drone. The girl stuck out her hand. "I'm Christa!" She almost yelled, as the secretary put a finger to her mouth and told the girl to quiet down as she took another call. Why she wasn't helping me I didn't know.

I shook Christa's hand.

"Nice to meet you." I said, "I think"

"Huh?" Christa said. "Did you say something?" I looked down the hall; still no Annabeth.

"What? Oh, uh, no I didn't. Just talking to myself." I looked at the secretary's name badge; with my dyslexia it was hard to make out, but her name was Marge L. Cooper. Christa walked away and started talking to a group of friends. She glanced at me pointing with her finger slightly. Her friends all laughed hysterically. Oh great, I really wished Annabeth would get here sooner. She was never late. What was the problem? Marge got off the phone.

"May I help you… sir?" She said again looking over me with disgust.

"Yeah, I need to find Annabeth Chase."

"Are you her boyfriend? Or brother? We don't allow boyfriends." She stirred a coffee slowly, sipped it, then took another pack of sugar and poured it in. That made the choice easy for me.

"Brother," I said. "Percy Chase."

"Ok, her room number is 409B. Let me know if you find her; she's been gone all day. She didn't even check into the computer lab, which isn't like her at all. The staff here is worried about her." The phone rang again, and Marge answered it. She seemed like a nice secretary. A forgetful one, but nice. I jogged to the elevator and pressed the button and immediately it opened. The elevator let out a ding when I got to floor B.

When I got to room 409, I knocked. No answer.

"Annabeth, It's me Percy." I heard a noise in the room, and the door opened. It was Annabeth. She looked nice, even though she had on her normal pair of dark jeans, and her orange camp half-blood t-shirt. Her hair was neatly combed, and her face was clean. She had matured a lot since the last time I'd seen her.

"Percy!" She hugged me so hard I thought I might die. (Except for the fact I successfully toke a bath in the river Styx, so that wasn't possible). I hugged her back.

"I thought you said we were gonna' meet outside," I said taking her hand. A staff member walked by and I let go.

"Is something wrong Percy?" She asked.

"No, but the only way I could get past secretary was if I was your brother. And normal brothers don't hold their sister's hand. That would be weird…" She laughed. It was nice to hear after a long year without her.

"Hold on, I have to get my suitcase and I'll be right out." We were going to Camp Half-Blood after this so she had to bring her stuff. I stepped inside her room.

"I met your roommate, Christa." I said staring at how clean the room was.

"Really?"

"Yeah, she doesn't seem like the kinda person you'd enjoy being around." I admitted. Even though I regretted it after I said it.

"Not really. So I go to the computer lab a lot in my free time." She was packing some last minute items. The kinda things you don't pack until you're ready to leave.

"She told me you talk about me all the time." I remarked.

"Well… "I'm ready to go!" I took her hand and checked the hallway to make sure nobody was watching, then stepped outside. Annabeth followed me.

"So why weren't you waiting outside?" I pressed.

"I was, uh, busy packing." She wasn't one of those last minute packers, so it was kind of hard to believe.

"Really?" I asked. "Oh and I almost forgot." I took the rose out of my jacket pocket. It was a little smashed but Annabeth took it anyway.

"Percy! How sweet! I didn't get you anything…"

"It's ok, you didn't have too." She kissed me on the cheek. That made my day.

"No, I wasn't really packing. I was… uh, getting ready for… our date." I could imagine why she was embarrassed. She hardly ever 'got ready' for anything other than battle. I eagerly tried to change the subject.

"So how has it been here with all these girls, and no battle combat?"

"Like being in Aphrodite's cabin at camp for a whole year." She said. We got in the elevator, which had two other girls in it. I immediately let go of her hand so that I wouldn't be the creeper brother. She smiled at me. We didn't talk the whole way down. The girls behind us started giggling and staring at me. Annabeth turned around but I whispered for her to ignore them. We then realized the elevator was going up.

"Geez" Annabeth murmured. At least the girls had stopped giggling. They both had brown hair, brown eyes, and were the same height. I figured they were twins. One stepped up next to me, slightly pushing in-between me and Annabeth.

"Hey, I'm Susan," she said, batting her eyelashes at me. She reminded me of Kelli the empusa. Which sent up flares in my mind. I put my hand on Riptide in case she burst into flames or something. Annabeth looked at me sternly, kinda like one of those warnings girls send you when they're getting annoyed with the fact you're talking to another girl.

"Hi…" I said and scooted away toward the wall of the elevator.

"I'm Samantha." The other girl pulled up on the other side of me. Now I was a little freaked out. The elevator stopped at level E and they pressed the close door button. Which made me want to get out.

"Wasn't that your stop?" I asked.

"Not anymore," Samantha said and grabbed my upper arm. "Wow, you're really buff." She squeezed my arm, and I pulled away and backed up to the back of the elevator where Annabeth was staring daggers at me. I put my hand on her suitcase. She brushed it off. She got jealous pretty easy I suppose. Maybe that was a good thing. I then realized the elevator wasn't moving. The twins turned around to face us.

"Annabeth, where's this incredible Percy Jackson you won't stop bragging about? Did he find someone new? Your brother's a hunk." Susan winked at me and continued. "I bet you lied about the whole -"

"Shut up!" I yelled. Annabeth stared at me like I was a complete moron. Why wasn't she defending herself? She was never this shy and torn down so easily. She stared at the floor. I was kinda shocked.

"For your information, my name is Percy Jackson, and I'm not Annabeth's brother. I just said that so I could get past the secretary!" The girls looked shocked.

"You're just trying to stick up for your little sister! If you really are Percy, then prove it!" I turned to Annabeth; she was looking at me in complete disbelief. I tilted her head up to mine and kissed her on the lips.

"Oh my gosh! Wait until I tell Principal Figgans! She'll probably expel you Annabeth! But, I won't even mention it if you kissed me too…"

"No way!" I said. The elevator started to move down; someone must have been waiting for it below us.

"Then Annabeth is expelled!" Samantha replied. I glanced at Annabeth, who was now a bit shorter than me. I guess I hadn't noticed that until I kissed her, since I had to tilt her head up to reach mine. She looked at me; she looked sad, mad, and nervous all at the same time. I picked up Samantha's hand and kissed it, then did the same for Susan. They both looked at me dreamily and laid their backs on the elevator door. It opened and they fell back onto the floor.

"Thanks Percy Jackson!" They both called and waved loutishly. Annabeth ran out of the elevator. I ran after her. Why was she so out of character here? I ran into another girl who smiled at me. I tripped over a rug and saw the rose I had given Annabeth on the floor. I picked it up. "Annabeth!" She kept running.

I didn't catch up to her until I found her sitting on a bench out in the parking lot, under a big oak tree. Sitting down next to her, I noticed she was crying. She scooted away from me as I tried to put my arm around her shoulder.

"Annabeth," I said sympathetically.

"Don't Annabeth me! What were you thinking? That I wouldn't mind if you just kissed every girl who walked into an elevator? Well I do!"

"I didn't want you to be expelled! I thought you liked this school!"

"Well you thought wrong!" She started sobbing again.

"Why didn't you defend yourself? You just stood there and stared at the floor! I had to do something!" I was almost as mad as she was.

"I never said I was very popular at this school! Nobody likes me, only Christa! And I don't like her back! I'm not girly enough for everyone here!" She put her hands up and put quotations around the word girly.

I sat there, unable to say anything. Annabeth stopped crying. I put the rose on her knee. She looked at it. I thought she would brush it off, but she didn't, which was a relief since she probably hated my guts right now.

"I'm sorry." I said and wiped a tear off Annabeth's beautiful face. "I didn't know you felt that way. How about I make it up to you? We'll go where ever you want today; we won't even go to camp this afternoon. We'll go tonight."

"You can't just offer me stuff and think I won't be mad at you Seaweed Brain." Annabeth turned to look at me.

I smiled at her. "But we could give it a shot…" She shook her head and smiled. I wiped another tear away from her cheek. She took my hand, and I helped her up, grabbed her luggage and started toward my truck.

"How did you get here, Percy? I didn't know you had a car…"

"Oh, well my ride's real nice. It has one working window on the passenger side, but you can only enter it through the driver's side; the tires need to be pumped up every 5 hours; and the gas mileage sucks. But otherwise I love it." Annabeth laughed, and I helped her into the driver's side before climbing in after her. "Where too?" I asked. I turned and started to back up, but then I saw it. An empusa no, empusi. As a matter of fact it was Susan and Samantha.

"I thought those didn't exist anymore since Lu-Kronos... died." Annabeth said; Luke was still a touchy subject. They were right behind my truck. I could probably run them over and make a run for it.

"What should we do Wise Girl?" I asked Annabeth.

"Get out of the truck and run." I figured out why she said this. The empusi were smashing holes in my back tires. I struggled out the door.

"Use the passenger door, all it will do is fall off!" She shoved it open and to my surprise it didn't fall off. She slammed it shut and ran toward me, the door falling off. We ran, leaving Annabeth's suitcase behind. We made it to Central Park before we collapsed.

"I think we lost 'em." Annabeth said breathing hard. I rolled over next to her, and we stared at the clouds. We were both breathing hard, and lying on our backs. "Maybe we should go back to camp and tell Chiron about the empusi." She said.

"Only if you really want to." I didn't want to force Annabeth to do anything after kissing the empusi's hands. Them being empusi made it even more embarrassing. I sat up. "Let's take a walk first"

As we walked the paths, we saw some strange stuff. There was a kid sleeping in a tree, and did he have… wings? He had black hair and olive skin. We left him alone, considering he could be a new kind of monster. We saw a hot dog vender dressed as a hot dog, and a small dog next to him, also wearing a hot dog suit. We walked to the spot where Nico and I entered the Underworld last summer. It made me uncomfortable just thinking about it.

"Did you know you can enter the Underworld here?" Annabeth smirked at me. "Nico told me." She finished, and squeezed my hand.

"We weren't done!" A voice crackled behind us. We turned, and Susan and Samantha were behind us. They called out in ancient Greek.

"Ανοιχτό, μαύρο λάκκο!" Which means, "Open, black pit!" Annabeth and I started to run. A pit opened under us and Annabeth fell in, grabbing onto a tree root.

"Annabeth!" I yelled. I needed rope; she was too far down for me to reach her. I found a long, thick stick, and put it down towards her. It still wasn't long enough. She was slipping. I needed to help her. Something from the bottom of the pit bubbled and popped. Black liquid stained the walls. I didn't know what it was but I didn't want Annabeth to find out the hard way. She was sweating. Her knuckles were turning white.

"Percy…" She mumbled softly. Suddenly, something black swooped down and grabbed her. I thought it would drop her in but instead it swooped back up and grabbed me too. We flew way high over Central Park. I looked up at our captor. It was the kid we saw in the tree. He did have wings.

"What kind of monster are you?" Annabeth remarked.

"Monster?" The guy said. I figured he was about 15 years old. If monsters had ages.

"If you're not a monster, are you one of Zeus's Guardians?" I asked. It reminded me of Thalia, and that one time when the metal Guardians saved us from the skeleton warriors at Hoover Dam.

"Uh, no, not that either." I started to get nervous as we got higher. Since he wasn't Zeus's Guardians, Zeus would probably zap me out of the sky.

"Can we go back to the ground?" I asked. He began descending.

"What's your name?" Annabeth asked. Leave it to her to get to know everyone we meet.

"Fang," he said.