Happy Holidays! (I know I'm late) I was too lazy to update...

Once we got there, I took my tent out of my magically expanded backpack carefully and put it up in a few minutes. I put inside my blow up mattress and a few of my belongings, but I kept everything else in the bag. I walked out of my tent and told everyone to get some sleep while I kept watch first. Just like I do every night.

I sat down and stared at the moon, thinking about all that happened today. I was even able to ignore my fear of the dark because I was thinking so much.

It should have been me, I thought, Kira didn't deserve to die like that.

My thoughts were interrupted by my trained ears hearing a quiet noise from behind me. I knew it wasn't the wind.

"I know you're there," I said in a bored voice without taking my eyes off the moon.

Joey sat down next to me and said, "Asking Artemis to knock some sense into Apollo for letting a maiden die isn't going to help you feel any better."

I grinned, "That's actually not a bad idea, but no. I wasn't doing that, I was just thinking."

"Go get some rest, you deserve it," he said and normally I would refuse but I was too tired from everything.

"'Kay," I said and headed to my tent.

I don't remember falling asleep but I must have the moment I touched my bed.

In my dream, I was sitting in the passenger seat of a bright red car... I could tell it wasn't a normal car because it was flying. I rolled my eyes, knowing that it was Apollo's sun chariot.

"I don't really want to talk to you now," I said to Apollo. He wasn't anywhere in sight but I could tell he was the one sending this dream to me.

The air shimmered next to me and the sun god appeared holding the steering wheel.

"Well, I want to talk to you," he said.

"You good as well killed her by not helping us," I said, not really caring if I sounded rude.

He didn't respond so I continued, "And why now? We've been on the run for a month and you suddenly show up, warn us to be careful, and now you send me a dream!"

He glared at me the same way he had done earlier today, but I didn't cower or anything because he couldn't hurt me in a dream... at least that's what I hope.

"Kate," he said. "I understand how you feel-"

"No," I interrupted. "You don't."

He acted as if he didn't hear me and continued, "-but this is all I can do."

I didn't say anything in response.

"If it helps; I brought her body to camp," he said. "I know that you wouldn't."

"Thanks," I mumbled.

He nodded, "Can you do me a favor?"

Slightly surprised at the question, I shrugged.

"In the town about ten minutes away from your camp, there's an orphanage. I can't tell you too much information, but I want you to check it out," he said with a wink.

Before I could I ask if there were demigods there, he snapped his fingers and everything went black.

When I opened my eyes, it was already dawn.

I walked out of my tent and found everyone else already sitting around on our beach chairs, discussing what we should have for breakfast

"Morning," I said.

"Morning, Kate," Joey and David replied while Lilly just nodded. Apparently she's still in shock with what happened yesterday. I was, too.

"Look, we have to go to the town," I said.

"Why?" Joey asked. "We're fine here, plus we still have enough food for a few more days."

"I know... but I, uh, had a dream... and besides, I think we could all use some showers," I said.

He must have realized that Apollo had sent me a dream because he mouthed oh and then said, "Yeah, I bet there's a YMCA or someplace where we could use a public shower and I suppose we could use a nice breakfast."

"How does Friendly's sound?" I asked. "I bet that every town in this country has at least one Friendly's in it."

"That sounds good," Lilly said.

"I guess," David agreed.

"Okay, sorry to make you all pack your stuff again-" I started to say.

"It's okay, Kate," Joey interrupted. "We know that you're doing your best to keep us alive and keep this group running smoothly."

I smiled and nodded, "Everyone be ready in five."

Lilly and David set off to work and I was slightly surprised to see them holding hands. Maybe the tough son of Ares has a little crush... wouldn't his father be proud...

Joey looked at me, "What did he say?"

"He wants me to check some orphanage in the town," I said. "Probably to find some siblings."

He sighed, "Probably. More responsibility for us," He paused. "And I've been thinking..."

"Yeah?"

"Should we, like, allow any demigod to join our, um, group if they want? So, we could be a little like the Hunters with their recruiting system, ask them to join or take them to camp," he said.

"I don't know, Joey," I said. "For now, we'll just accept anyone who wants to stay with us. If too many do, then we'll add some requirements that they have to meet or something. I don't think I'm ready to have a group as large as the Hunters, but less experienced, at my command."

"Yeah... I guess it could be difficult."

"Exactly, so for now, let's just focus on getting to that orphanage and find out as much as we can about the information Apollo couldn't tell me."

"Well, can we at least have a group name? Something to make us more official?" he asked.

"I suppose... If you want to make one; go ahead," I said.

He rolled his eyes, "You are so predictable."

"I know," I said cheerfully and headed to my tent.

He chuckled behind my back.

"I'm full," David said as we walked out of the Friendly's.

"Good," I said. "We won't have another meal like this for a few months. We shouldn't waste our money."

"Okay," he said. "And I have a question."

"Yeah?" Joey said.

"Where did you get the money from in the first place?" he asked.

"We're no children of Hermes, but we stole it from Camp Half-Blood's store before we left," Joey explained. "There was only about five thousand dollars or so. I know it seems like a lot but we've already used two hundred of it for weekly food... and we just used another fifty at Friendly's."

"Oh," he said. Then he looked thoughtful for a moment then asked, "Will you ever take us to go see Camp Half-Blood? I want to meet my brothers and sisters."

I sighed, "Preferably not, David. I know you would like to meet them, but I don't know. Chiron and Mr. D might punish me and Joey for running away from camp. Trust me, kitchen duty is not fun."

"Well," Joey said. "Chiron would probably just scold us for a few minutes, but Mr. D might go a little overboard."

"Yeah," I said and then looked at the map we took from a nearby bus station. "The only orphanage here is a few streets away. Come on."

A mortal man bumped into me and said, "Sorry, miss." Then he hurried off after eying my bow in my hand nervously.

Weird... mortals should see it as an umbrella through the Mist... Ah, well...

We kept going. In about five minutes, we reached the old brick building with a sign that said... something... with my dyslexia it was hard to tell.

"Okay, Lilly and David, I want you guys to stay out here," I ordered as I put away my bow. "There might be monsters in there. Keep your weapons ready, ears open, and eyes peeled for any sign of danger."

They nodded and stood next to a streetlight.

"Come on," Joey said to me and I followed him inside the orphanage.

At the Friendly's, we had planned to sneak in, but the moment we stepped inside, a woman's voice said, "What do you kids want? I haven't seen you in these parts before." We turned around and saw an old lady glaring at us.

"Oh," Joey said. "Um... sorry, ma'am, we were just..."

"We just wanted to research how orphaned children feel," I said quickly, then added, "It's for our Language Arts summer packet. We, uh, have to write a short story and we want to write from an orphan's point of view. So, is it okay if we interview a few of the children here? I really want to get an 'A' to start the school year well."

Hmm... I think that's a pretty good lie, I thought proudly.

"Alright," she said. "Follow me."

We followed her warily until she opened a door and said, "Okay, children, this young man and lady would like to ask some of you some questions. Be good, I'll be back in a few minutes." Then she walked away, which in my opinion seemed a little weird.

The group of kids stared at us, there was at least a dozen or so. Each seemed to be working on something artistic; some were painting, others were drawing and some were making pottery.

"Well?" a girl asked.

"Oh, yeah," I said, trying to think of a simple way to discover if any of these are demigods. "Um, does anyone have a paper and pen that I could borrow?"

Joey gave me a questioning look, but I didn't notice.

"Here," a boy about ten said as he handed me a sheet of paper.

"Thanks," I said.

I quickly scribbled down "If you can read this, please come stand with us; we know who one of your parents are." in Ancient Greek, knowing that any demigod would understand it and would probably want to know who their parent is.

I held up the paper and said, "Okay, if you can read it, do what it says. We, uh, have to do this to test your... uh, creativity levels."

Joey, seeming to catch on, said, "Yep, and then we'll talk in the hallway."

Almost immediately, a pair of twins stepped forward. I can't believe I didn't notice their blonde hair and grey eyes before. A girl and a boy. They're definitely Athena's. Then, a small boy around five with golden hair and blue eyes stepped forward next to the twins.

Great... another younger brother for me to take care of.

"Anyone else?" Joey asked.

Some kids shook their heads or said "no" in response, but the rest just simply ignored him.

"Alright," I said. "Come out into the hallway."

The three kids (and yes I can call them kids, I'm probably a few years older than them) followed me and Joey into the hallway.

Joey and I took our bows out and I said, "There's not much time to explain, but, please, go get your things and come meet us here before that lady realizes what we're doing."

"What?" Athena's boy asked. "Why?"

"Just listen to her or you'll end up with an arrow in your leg," Joey said and unfortunately... he was speaking from experience.

"See! My dream was right!" the younger boy exclaimed to the girl.

"Dream?" I asked. "Oh, never mind, you can tell me later. Just get your things and meet us here as soon as possible."

It must have been either: A. Joey's threat or B. my stern expression that got them to do what I said or C. maybe the Fates decided to make something easy for me.

The kids left and came back less than a minute later. Joey and I rushed them outside before that lady would notice that she's missing three kids.

"Come on," I said and walked over to where Lilly and David were standing, bored. I felt relieved when I saw that they were not holding hands, hugging, or anything slightly romantic. That could just cause trouble for me if their fathers don't approve of a young relationship.

I turned around to face them and said, "I'm glad that you decided to come with us without us having to explain everything first."

The twins nodded, but they seemed to be studying everything I and Joey did. Maybe Athena is telepathically telling them that we're friends, but they still aren't believing it.

"Okay, I'll make this as simple as I can and believe it; it's the truth," I said. "You are demigods. Half human, half Greek god. We are too. Apollo, god of archery, medicine, etc. is my dad as well as Joey's." I pointed at the younger boy and continued, "And you're probably our half brother."

"Cool!" the boy exclaimed.

"Wait," Joey said. "We'll get to the bad part soon."

"What about our parent?" the girl asked.

"Athena, goddess of wisdom and battle strategy," I said. "That's at least my best guess. You have the same eye and hair color as all her children. You're also giving me a calculating look as if you're trying to plan how to ditch us if we turn out to be enemies."

"I told you guys!" the younger boy said. "That man in my dream said something about a lady called A... A... Athena being your mommy!"

"What man?" Joey asked before any of us could even open our mouths to say something.

"He said his name was Fred."

Joey and I grinned. He asked me, "Didn't he call himself 'Fred' when he helped Percy on his quest to save Artemis?"

"If what we heard about that quest was true, then yeah," I replied.

"Okay," said the girl. "You still haven't told us about the 'bad part'."

"Right," David said just when I opened my mouth. "There are these monsters that smell us, then they find us and try to eat us! Then we fight them with pointy swords!" He did a short demonstration with his sword.

"Well, that's the easy way to put it," I said. "So, pretty much the ancient monsters are real and will kill you, like he said, but we can train you and show you how to fight these monsters and stay alive."

"And if you don't want to stay with us and live in the wilderness; we can take you to this camp for people like us. Kate," Joey gestured to me. "And I ran away from there. We felt unimportant."

"Um, well, we'll think about it," the older boy said uncertainly and looked back at the orphanage.

"Come on, Natalie! Nick!" the little boy exclaimed. "We hate the orphanage. Let's have some fun!"

"Alright, Chaz," the twins said in unison after sighing.

"Shouldn't we get out of here before some monster find us?" Lilly asked.

"Good idea, Lilly, but first we should introduce ourselves. I'm Kate Wolf, daughter of Apollo," I said.

"Joey Richards, son of Apollo."

"David Knight, my dad is Ares!"

"Lilly Woods, and my daddy is Hermes."

I smiled at the pride filled in Lilly's voice when she said her name. Then I said, "Do you guys know your last names?"

The twins looked at each other and said, "No."

"Yes," Chaz said. "My name is Chaz Gold."

"Gold?" Joey asked. "Wow, dad must have taken forever to find your mom..."

"I know, right," I said. "But we really should get going."

"The woods are that way," Lilly said, while pointing down the street.

"Yeah, I've been there before," Chaz said. "Are we camping?"

"Yup, unless it rains," David explained. "Then we find a hotel."

He, Lilly and Chaz started walking toward where the woods supposedly are. The rest of us followed them.

I felt very nervous because I haven't been in the real world with such a large group of demigods before. Well, there was the time when everyone went to Manhattan to fight the Titans, but at least then I knew that I was going to fight. Now, I don't and instead of skilled demigods I have three untrained demigods; two with only a month or so with experience and I have Joey. If we meet up with a monster, it's going to be a hard fight.

"When can we get weapons?" Nick asked while looking at my bow.

"Well," I said. "We have some extra weapons that we stole from camp. So, first, we'll train you a bit with each type that we have. Then whichever you're best at; you can keep."

"Cool," Nick replied.

"Yeah," Natalie agreed.

"Oh," Joey said, remembering something. "How old are you guys and Chaz?"

"Eleven," the twins answered together. "And Chaz is five."

Joey nodded. I signaled for him to come behind the twins, just so we have a better look on everything.

"Great," I muttered to Joey. "Athena's brats are already being annoying; saying the same thing at the same time."

Thunder boomed in the distance, so I rolled my eyes and said, "Sorry for having my own opinion about something!"

It thundered again.

"Fine, sorry, Athena!"

The sky was silent so I assumed I was forgiven.

The twins and Chaz stopped to stare at me with questioning looks while Lilly and David just ignored it and continued their conversation.

"What?" I asked. "I apparently insulted Athena."

"Oh," Natalie said and turned the boys around.

Once they looked away, Joey whispered, "Brats?"

"I have a grudge against one of their siblings."

"Grudge?"

"More like a rivalry."

"Rivalry?"

"Love rivalry."

"Love... what?"

I finally turned to face him. "Love rivalry. A daughter of Athena is dating the guy that I like," I explained.

"You're jealous of... a daughter of Athena?" he asked then looked thoughtful for a moment. "Annabeth? You have a crush on Percy?"

"Well, a girl can dream..." I said, looking away.

He rolled his eyes. "He's too old for you."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah."

About fifteen minutes later, I found out that I wasn't forgiven for calling the twins brats because we were just a few streets away from the woods (according to the twins and Chaz, at least) and I heard an owl hoot. Then it started pouring. Gradually at first but then it became almost impossible to walk.

"I said 'sorry'!" I exclaimed angrily. Then asked Natalie and Nick, "Do you know any nearby hotels?"

"I'm pretty sure that there's a Best Western if we take a left at that stop sign," Natalie said.

"Okay, let's high tail it down there, then!" Joey ordered.

I followed behind the group as Natalie and Nick took the lead. I glared at the sky, which by the way is very hard when it's pouring. I just had this weird feeling that something important is happening and I don't know anything about it. There just has to be something going on! First, Apollo shows up randomly and tells us that he actually cares about us. Then, he sends me a dream telling me to go to this orphanage where we find three half bloods to replace... Kira... Besides, it's raining for unknown reasons, too. I don't actually believe that Zeus would just make it rain because I insulted his oldest daughter. Well... maybe he would... but something bigger must be happening.

Nick's voice interrupted my thoughts, "Okay, we're here."

I looked around quickly and realized that we were standing in front of a Best Western. I openned and held the door open for the others, then said, "Joey, come help me rent a room. Everyone else stay here near the door. These are the nice kind of places in which demigods usually get killed in."

The newbies seemed to understand that I'm in charge here because they nodded while Joey and I walked up to the main desk. I wasn't too shocked at who I saw sitting there, reading a magazine.

Joey grinned, "Hey, Fred."

The man looked up from his magazine and said, "About time you got here. Now, where's Chaz?"

"Look, we just need to stay here for the night, so why don't you just give us a room and stop interfering with our lives," I said rudely, but I really wasn't in the mood to talk with Apollo again.

He got this overly calm look on his face. "Kate, don't speak to me that way."

I rolled my eyes in response. I guess its obvious that I've always had a weird relationship with him. Yeah, I'll admit that I love him, but he is the most annoying and "un-fatherly" guy. Well... maybe except for Kronus, but that's different.

"Yeah, so, um... dad," Joey said. "Why didn't you just send a satyr to get Natalie, Nick and Chaz? I'm sure he or she would have been better at explaining everything and all than we are."

"I can't tell you too much just yet," Apollo said. "But there was this prophecy and like I said; I can't say a lot. It has something to do with you and Eris."

"Eris?" I asked. The name rang a bell in my head but I couldn't put my finger on where I heard it before.

"Minor goddess of chaos and discord. You'll find out more sooner or later," he said. Then he slid from behind the desk and started walking to the others. In a cheerful voice, he said, "Chaz! Come give your old man a hug!"

Chaz spun around and looked at Apollo. Then he looked at me, so, I nodded to reassure him that Apollo's safe. He ran forward and hugged his long lost dad.

"Are you really my daddy?" he asked hopefully.

"Yeah, Chaz," Apollo said while pulling away from the hug. "Now, lets make it official." He snapped his fingers and a hologram of a golden lyre appeared over Chaz's head.

Of course, he claims the cute five year old before he even learns to fight, but claims me after a war (in which I almost died in several times) just because Percy made the gods swear to claim their children.

So, everyone enjoying the feature presentation so far? (Yes, I know the part about finding the twins and Chaz was kinda crappy... I'll try better.)

*grabs some popcorn and starts eating happily*

I know I'm enjoying coming up with what happens.

Please, stay tuned for Chapter 3