I hope you like this chapter (I had so much fun writing it)—the beginning may seem a little slow, but I promise it gets a lot better. PLEASE REVIEW!

And like I said this'll be a real length story when I'm done so any tips or suggestions, FEEL FREE!

Annabeth POV

It was now past the deadline for 'lights out' and at the moment all Thalia and I had to do was kill time.

"Are you sure the Hunters aren't suspicious about why you haven't gone back to the cabin yet?" I asked. Thalia had used my cap to enter, pack, and leave the Artemis cabin before the others had come back from the campfire.

"Stop straining that humungous mind of yours before it explodes. We've been over the plan and it'll work out on way or another. I told the Hunters that I was doing some work for Chiron and probably be away till late."

She was trying to reassure me, but nothing would have the power to calm me down right able now. If everything went according to plan I would be able to see my Seaweed Brain in a few days, but if we screwed up tonight we would not get a second chance, Chiron would make sure of it. If we screwed up, days would turn into months and the wait would be agony. The longing to see him right then and there was almost unbearable: his black disheveled hair that stupid crooked grin, and those brilliant sea green eyes that made you want to melt— what if he doesn't remember?

I couldn't stand that thought and my ADHD wasn't helping it. I kept fidgeting and tapping my fingers till I realized Thalia had been starring at me, eyebrows raised.

"What's really nagging you, and don't give me that crap about 'what if something goes wrong', its Percy isn't it?"

I hesitated, "Do you think it's stupid of me to get my hopes up about Percy remembering me…and maybe things working out?"

Thalia smacked her on the arm, OW!, "Don't you start thinking like! You two love each other," I shook my head, "Don't even dare try to deny it! You two love each other and love isn't something you should give up on."

"Says the Hunter who gave up on love! How would you know what it's like?"

At that, she fell silent and looked down at her feet as we continued through the woods. This brought up the question that always seemed to be somewhere in my mind, but I had never sucked up enough courage to ask, until now.

"Thalia…when," I took a deep to say the name, "Luke, you, and me were basically running around the country I was only seven and wouldn't really have noticed if…"

"You're wondering if there was something between me and Luke back then." I looked up at her and nodded, she looked as if her energy had been stolen from her.

"I honestly didn't know either, Annabeth, I mean we both kind of had feelings…But we were running around the country, fighting monster after monster, for some reason even though we faced death on a regular basis I guess we both thought we would have more time…"

We kept walking till we came to an opening between the trees, the view overlooking the beach.

"You know that's the reason why I hoped so badly that you and Percy would get together. I didn't want that to happen to you, overestimating the amount of time you guys have and then something happens…Like one of you turning into a tree (seaweed if it was Percy) or the other wanting to take over the world." I immediately fell guilty for talking to her about my problems when she already had a large enough burden to bear.

"Gods, Thalia, I'm so sorry I should have been a better friend, I should have been there for you—"

"Hey, what happened with Luke really messed up the both of us, but we'll always be there for each other and besides we both got to say good bye to him, we were able to get a little closure."

"When?"

"After the war, in the Underworld, I had Nico help me."

I could tell that we were both thinking about our good bye to Luke. I also knew that neither of us was going to talk about it, it hurt too much. We gazed out to the sea, there were tears falling down both our faces, but they were slow tears, not weepy.

Then they heard a twig snap in half behind them. "Annabeth?" "Thalia?"

Leo POV

"Be very, very careful with that rope Leo," Travis whispered while I continued to pull the rope, "Slowly!"

"Guys I got this! Besides there's no way that the paint can spill while it's on the zip line, so relax."

The two of them shook their heads, "Oh Leo, sweet, ignorant Leo," said Conner, putting his arm on Leo's shoulders, "what you and Jason have yet to learn is that each prank is an individual masterpiece."

And Travis finished, "so each time you have to strive to make it the Mona Lisa," then Conner cut in, "the set up, the actual contraption or plan, the execution…they all hold their own beauty." Then they said simultaneously, "So what have you learned?"

"That the two of you are secretly fans of Leonardo Da Vinci, because you know I'm the Leo in Leonardo, so I get it if you guys want to start worshipping me like—" their expression hardened.

"This is no laughing matter!" Leo always thought that the Stolls weren't able to understand the concept of 'no laughing matter', let alone ever say it.

He tried again, "Um…I-I'm going to set that can of paint on exactly the big red X, because we're making the Mona Lisa," they gestured for more, "and…and it's, um, pretty—," their eyes widened, "no, no it's beautiful!"

They smiled, satisfied at his answer, "You're going to do some good in this world someday, son," Conner patted him on the back and they left Leo to finish tying the rope himself. Jason entered the cabin and silently went up to him making sure not to wake any Ares campers around them.

"Ready?" I nodded, "Where are the Stolls?"

"Somewhere outside, but hey before this I never thought I'd be able to use the words 'passion' and 'Stoll brothers' in the same sentence, man was I wrong."

"Gods, I know, I started making fun of them when they gave me the exact measurements of how much knock-out spray to use to keep the Ares campers sleeping, something like you have to use one-eighth of the bottle but I only spray one-fourth of the one-eighth every 1 and a half minutes. Anyway it looked like they wanted to kill me for offending their 'carefully thought out mission for the justice of the God of Thieves and all those who steal to keep the world going round.'"

I snorted and suggested that we go find the 'junior Picassos'. They were huddling around three separate computer screens, when I saw them I realize they showed the inside of the Ares cabin from different angles.

"Everything's set, you?" I asked

"Yep, we got the cameras positioned so we can catch their reaction on tape." Conner replied, grinning like a child on Christmas morning. Then Travis added, "Teach them to call the Hermes cabin 'sniveling no-good thieves."

"Aren't you," Jason retorted.

"But we're not sniveling," Travis threw back, and then Conner, with his voice rising said, "or no-good!" The Stolls got up and headed toward the woods, Jason and I followed. Today they had been given the opportunity to be taken under the Stoll brother's wing and learn the basics of pulling a prank. I, of course, went right for it, but it had taken a while to convince Jason, but even an all-mighty disciplined Roman can't stand the temptation.

Beauty Queen will probably smack me for it tomorrow, I thought, or make me smack myself, and frowned, I smack hard. Then I thought about what the Ares campers would do, they'd kill me, Clarisse would electrocute me with her spear—again, WHY didn't I think about this before?

"Um, guys, what are we going to do when the Ares campers try to, you know, kill us?"

"Don't worry, your with us now, we've been through this millions of times and we're not dead, yet."

Then the Stolls started whispering between themselves, I caught one part, "they'll kill them, not us." Jason heard it to and I figured he would have the job of fighting them off while I would burst into flames and wet my pants at the same time. I was about to tell him when I noticed that the Stolls had come to a stop. Jason and I glanced at each other, his hand going toward the coin in his pocket, mine on my tool belt. We walked up to the Stolls to find them not staring at a monster but two people blocking the path, their backs facing us.

"Annabeth?" "Thalia?"

Everyone looked pretty surprised, but as for the four of us were weren't just surprised to find them, but a lot more weirded out to find them with tears in their eyes. We all knew Annabeth cried for her boyfriend, but she was still the strong and determined camp leader who would never let anyone see her that 'broken'. As for Thalia he had no idea what the hell was going on, Annabeth was the one with the lost boyfriend and Thalia was the always cool and collected Hunter. They wiped their tears, but both looked pretty calm for someone who had been caught crying. He guessed that after a lifetime of constant surprises it took a lot to startle them nowadays.

"What are you guys doing awake, its past 'lights out'" Annabeth asked.

"No reason," Travis lied easily, clearly having done this before, Conner back him up saying, "Just the usual midnight stroll, what are you guys doing up."

Both Annabeth's and Thalia's eyes narrowed dangerously, their eyes were no longer soft from the tears, now startlingly sharp grey and blue. Annabeth's looked as if they were x-raying us, while Thalia's swept from face to face, like they were expecting one of us to break. Thalia's gaze rested on Jason who was looking at her worriedly.

I didn't really get that, then I realized how much sense it made for him to be worried, considering she was his sister, his hot sister. Thalia is way out of my league and that is exactly why I'm in love with her. I basically flirt with any girl like that, well, except for Annabeth. I mean Annabeth is gorgeous, everyone knows that, and she can kill you just as easily as Thalia, which is another trait that I love. But even I know it would be wrong to hit on her while she's going through losing her boyfriend. This is why I will wait till she gets her boyfriend back and then I'll properly flirt with her like she deserves. I then wondered what her boyfriend, Percy Jackson, the savior of Olympus, would do to me for it. Would he drown me? Beat me to a pulp?...

Jason nudged me to bring me back to reality. Apparently, I had been starring at Thalia the entire time when that all ran through my head, I also had my mouth hanging wide open, little embarrassing. Thalia rolled her eyes at me, she loves me back, and announced, "Annabeth and I were just going to bed."

With that the two girls took off toward the cabins, while the Stolls went in the opposite direction.

"Wait, where are you guys going?" said Annabeth looking back at them.

"Conner and I have guard duty tonight, why do you care?" Travis replied pointedly. We knew that they were hiding something and they knew we were hiding something, was anybody going to speak up—NO.

No one said anything else after that, the girls took off in one direction, the Stolls in the other, and Jason left the way we had came, to his cabin. I took a while for me to realize that I was now alone, wow, my brain really is slow. Not really knowing what to do, I just peered over to the view of the beach, nice view…maybe someday I could have a romantic dinner here with Thalia…

Annabeth POV

Thalia groaned, "Leo annoys me so much, I swear if he wasn't Jason's friend I would have turned him to ash a long time ago, but you know what? Just because he's my brother's friend doesn't mean I can't pound the fact that I'm a Hunter into him."

"Good for you, but we need to focus, the Stolls just said that they have guard duty tonight. Since they upped security to six guards and considering that the Stolls had swords not bows just now, I'm guessing that the four other guards are archers. That also means that the Stolls probably have the job of signaling the alarm if anything goes wrong."

"Okay, so we have to knock the Stolls out first because they'll be the closest to the alarm, which you have to admit will be pretty fun, I can imagine their faces now…" she smirked.

I let myself smile at the thought, "Oh it will, but I need to do one last thing before we go, so while I do that how about you stake out the entrance and find out where the other guards are positioned."

"Sure," she slipped through the trees to the entrance and I made my way to the Hephaestus cabin. When I peeked into the window I was relieved to find the Leo was already there, getting into his bunk. I took out a notepad and pen from my bag, wrote:

Use these to finish the Argo II. Tell Chiron that I'm sorry and make sure that the Hunters know that Thalia wants them to remain at camp till further notice. Malcolm is my second in command and he can take my place till we return with Percy. Don't change any of the camp's plans for peace with the Romans because of this.

-Annabeth

I waited 10 more minutes till I heard him snoring and was sure that he was asleep. I put on my Yankees cap and took out the blueprints from my bag and set it next to Leo's bed with the note on top.

"Clarisse—No! No!...," he muttered in his sleep, I froze, worried that I'd wake him or the other campers in the room at the slightest sound, "Please…don't kill…too young—too handsome," he was shaking his head violently now, but then he stopped and started to smile, "Thalia…" then he took his pillow in his arms and began to kiss it passionately.

I tip-toed out of the cabin before I burst out laughing, if we could see his dreams…

When I reached the entrance to the camp I found Thalia hidden behind some bushes and joined her. I took the cap off, she looked up at me, and slipped something into my hand. We were hidden in shadows so I couldn't tell exactly what it was in the dark, but I felt it. There were four separate pieces one was a long hollowed out cylinder, then three sharp darts?

"Careful not to prick yourself or you'll fall asleep instantly."

"We're using blow darts to knock them out?"

"Yep, I know we planned on using spray, but then you'd have to be close enough to them to do it and they're so spread out that they'd notice before we were done. And don't worry, the darts are non-lethal, I think."

"Thalia!" I hissed.

"Kidding! No one is going to die tonight. Okay? Here are their positions, you were right the Stoll brothers are standing next to the alarm over there," she pointed to two figures leaning against a tree in the distance. Then she continued pointing out the four others who sat in the trees above us, forming half a circle around the entrance. The closest guard was about thirty feet away from us. Each of the four were approximately twenty feet in the air with their bows at the ready, while the Stolls had their swords, not that they would have a chance to use them, of course.

They also had to keep Peleus, the dragon-guard in mind, but they had already come to the conclusion that he wouldn't notice what was going on till they had officially crossed the border.

I figured that the best way to start the attack would be to knock out the Stolls first, then that would be Thalia's cue to take out the rest. It worried me that Thalia would have to take all four archers out herself, but it was truly the only way. As she had been staking out the entrance she found that there wasn't a single good angle to Stolls if you tried from the trees. That meant that one of us had to be situated on the ground, but from ground level it would be too hard to hit any of the archers.

I was a decent climber but since Thalia was the Hunter she had more experience attacking at that height. Since she had the bigger job to do I gave her my cap, hoping it would give her some leverage, and we set to work.

She climbed the one tree that we found had a clear angle on all four, located right in the middle of the half-circle. We agreed that I would wait at least five minutes before I started, giving her plenty of time to climb the tree and find the four angles that she would use.

Without my cap I was perfectly visible. I kneeled down behind a bush about 15 feet away from the Stolls, their backs toward me. They were only 10 feet away from the switch that sounded alarm, once the dart punctured their skin their first instinct would be to go for it. I hoped that the liquid laxative in the darts took effect before they would be able to reach it, if not I would be forced to interfere and become a clear target to the archers above. But I couldn't pray, I couldn't imagine any of the Gods siding with us, including my mother, Zeus, or Poseidon, they would want us to wait to formally meet the Romans as a group, not risk the chance of another Civil War. (Not to mention the fact that Zeus was prohibiting the god's interference with demigods)

Five minutes…Four…Three…Two…One—time. I slowly raised my head above the bush, put the cylinder to my lips, aimed, and blew. Conner grunted, I reloaded, he fell, Travis turned towards me, one archer fell towards the ground, I blew, and Travis grunted. Another archer fell, then another, then…where was the other archer?

I looked at the tree that should have held the fourth archer—it was empty. My eyes ran down the trunk of the tree, I spotted someone scurrying down, when he was about halfway he jumped and sprinted toward the alarm.

Thalia didn't have an angle and neither did I, taking a dart in my hand, I tackled him.

I pinned him to the floor and noticed that a spear had flown from his hand, he wasn't an archer after all. Whoever he was he was strong and wearing full body armor, making it hard to find a place to jab the dart in. Before I could, he flung me from his back.

I got up, kicked the spear behind me, and turned to face my opponent, dagger in hand.

"Get off punk!"

My eyes widened at the voice. He was no archer, he used a spear, he was not a he, someone who likes calling people punk?—Clarisse.

When I tackled her, her helmet must have gotten crooked because she was now fumbling with it and hadn't seen me yet. She was, however, cursing me in Greek and challenging me to a fight even though she was weaponless. Well you have to commend her for her bravery at the very least.

Thalia had now joined me with her bow and arrow at the ready. (Being a hunter her bow and arrow appear whenever she needs it) I positioned myself between Clarisse and the alarm while Thalia blocked the path heading back to camp—she was cornered.

When she was done fixing her helmet she raised her fists at me and looked me squarely in the face. Her eyes widened when she realized it was me, but her fists didn't lower. If I had to fight her to get Percy back that was just something I have to do. Although I would feel guilty, she had started to actually stand up for me since Percy had gone. Definitely acted a lot nicer towards me..told me I reminded her of Silena… Something I have to do.

"Annabeth?" she threw a glance at Thalia, "Thalia?"

"Clarisse, your weaponless, please don't try to fight us," I tried to reason.

"You guys are going to get Prissy back, aren't you?" Thalia and I looked at each other.

"Yeah," I replied, it was pointless to lie, they'd all know in the morning.

After a few moments Clarisse lowered her fists and said, "Go Ahead," The daughter of Ares—surrendering? My eyebrows furrowed, she continued, "Go, hand me one of those darts so no one knows I let you out," nothing happened. "This is no time for questions Chase! Want to get your boyfriend back, or not?"

Thalia handed her a dart, "Thanks," I said, still not really understanding what just happened.

"Don't thank me. If anyone finds out about this, you're dead. Now go get Prissy back because it's no fun teasing people when there isn't anyone to stand up for them." With that she pushed the dart into her arm and fell back.

Thalia and I remained standing with our weapons raised, surveying the area for any last minute surprises or complications. The camp remained silent—they hadn't woken anyone up and now all six guards were fast asleep.

I stifled a laugh when I saw the Stoll brothers, a dart stuck out of Conner's upper back and he was laying face down on the ground, but his head itself was turned to the side. His arms and legs were sprawled out around him, like you would when trying to make a snow angel, and his mouth was in a perfect 'O'. As for Travis, instead of the ground he had fallen face up on Conner 's back. A dart pointing out of his chest and his face turned to the side, drooling on his brother's shirt.

I thought back to all the embarrassing times that they had found me with Percy and had taken pictures or 'photographic evidence' to use to make fun of us later. Not being able to resist the urge, I got out my phone and took a quick picture.

Thalia chuckled when she saw what I was doing. I put the phone away and we took one last glance around.

"That went well," she stated. I wasn't able to tell if she was being sarcastic or she genuinely thought that we did good. Focus…

"We're not out yet, there are still a lot of things that could go wrong," I reminded her and she nodded.

We jogged past the Big House and cabins till we came to a stop at the camp's 'garage', which held one van. Using pegasi would have been our first choice to get to the airport but with the construction of the Argo II, they were constantly using them to retrieve more materials. Not wanting to deprive the camp of that resource, our only other option was to use the camp's van, which was barely in use.

The problem with the van was that it was LOUD and considering that fact that we would have to drive past all of the cabins, including the Big House in the middle of the night. This meant that we were about to wake up the entire camp in our efforts to leave.

I sat in the passenger seat while Thalia took the wheel. We both started taking a few deep breaths at what we were about to do. The guards were knocked out, our packed bags sat in the backseat, and the only this left to do was leave. Our plan: drive as fast as humanly possible so we don't give anyone time to set up defenses or roadblocks.

We locked eyes with each other for a second and then put the key in the ignition, it was LOUD. She slammed her foot down on the pedal and I was thrown back in my seat as we took off. Even when we were still approaching the line of cabins, we saw lights turning on and campers waking up.

People began running out of their cabins to see what was going on. When we were halfway to the entrance I looked back and saw campers practically pouring out of the cabins we had passed.

Thalia was now constantly swerving to refrain from killing someone. CRASH. BOOM!

They ran into the wooden picket fence in front of the Demeter cabin and straight through their front yard garden. When I looked back I saw Demeter kids screaming over the squished plants. That was going to be hard to apologize for when they got back…

"Hey Thals, did you ever get a driver's license?" I asked, her driving was really starting to scare me now.

"Nope."

"That explains so much."

We passed the Big House, in the doorway stood Chiron with an impassive expression. "Sorry Chiron," I whispered under my breath. Then up the hill, past the six snoring guards, the border line, Peleus, and made a sharp turn onto the road.

A few moments later I leaned back into my seat and we began to relax. Both of us were smiling to ourselves. IT WORKED!

We were still going quite fast, afraid that some campers might have gone on pegasi to stop us. Then something began to glow in the rearview mirror. I squinted and noticed it was getting bigger and bigger. I looked back…Oh Gods.

I turned the steering wheel and swerved us off the road. Just in time to doge the gigantic fireball that flew straight past us. "Annabeth take the wheel, I'll take care of it." I nodded and we switched seats.

I put us back on the road but began driving zig- zag so we wouldn't appear clear targets.

"What is it?" I asked, not really knowing if I wanted to hear her answer.

"Peleus,"

"That doesn't make sense! He's chained to a tree, he couldn't have gotten this far."

"Oh he's chained to a tree alright—he's kind of dragging it along with him."

Thalia had her bow in her hand and was notching an arrow.

"Thalia if you kill him, Chiron kills us!"

"Well do you have any better ideas because we can't drive the entire way to JFK with a dragon on our tail, especially one that's trying to kill us."

My mind scanned through the different materials we had brought. Two more fireballs sped past us.

"The darts we used on the guards!"

"They're way too small for a dragon; he probably wouldn't feel a thing."

"No, Thals, they have liquid laxatives in them. Break some open and pour the liquid onto the tip of the arrow. Then aim for one of his legs or something like that, just be sure that the arrow won't be able to kill him."

Thalia broke open the darts, spilled the liquid onto the bow tip, and opened the sunroof of the van. One minute later, Peleus was taking a little nap on the road. Thalia leaned back in her seat and I stopped zig- zagging.

"I can drive till we get to JFK, you're probably tired by now." Thalia offered.

"Are you kidding? You just admitted you didn't have a real driver's license."

Thalia pouted.

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