Chapter III

Aria

I kept thinking about what the dryad had said. "Because they need your help!" I honestly wasn't sure what to make of it. I walked around for about three hours kicking rocks and scaring the life out of pigeons. Without thinking about it I remembered my mothers smile, and my sisters laugh. I stopped dead in my tracks mothers smile, sisters laugh. What was going on. With a moments hesitation I turned around and headed for New York.

Three months later

Percy

Ever come home and found your room messed up? Like some helpful person (hi, Mom) has tried to "clean" it, and suddenly you can't find anything? And even if nothing is missing, you get that creepy feeling like somebody's been looking through your private stuff and dusting everything with lemon furniture polish?

That's how it felt seeing camp half blood again. That didn't seem to faze Tyson he was absolutely fascinated by everything he saw.

"Whasthat!" He gasped.

"The stables for the pegasi," I said but my heart wasn't in it."The winged horses."

"Whasthat!"

"Umm... those are the toilets."

"Whasthat!"

"The cabins for the campers. If they don't know who your Olympian parent is, they put you in the Hermes cabin that brown one over there until you're determined. Then, once they know, they put you in your parent's group."

He looked at me in awe. "You ... have a cabin?"

"Number three." I pointed to a low gray building made of sea stone.

"You live with friends in the cabin?"

"No. No, just me." I didn't feel like explaining. The embarrassing truth: I was the only one who stayed in that cabin because I wasn't supposed to be alive. The "Big Three" gods Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades had made a pact after World War II not to have any more children with mortals. We were more powerful than regular half-bloods. We were too unpredictable. When we got mad we tended to cause problems ... like World War II, for instance. The "Big Three" pact had only been broken twice once when Zeus sired Thalia, once when Poseidon sired me. Neither of us should've been born.

We found Chiron in his apartment, listening to his 1960's music while he packed his saddle bags. Maybe I should tell you, Chiron is a centaur. from the waist up he's a middle aged mad with curly brown hair and a scraggy beard. But from the waist down he's a white stallion. He can pass as a human but if the ceilings are high enough he likes to hang out in full blown centaur form.

So naturally when we walked in Tyson's eyes widened and he said with delight,"Pony!"

Chiron turned, looking offended. "I beg your pardon." The conversation continued without much humor.

Finally Chiron said his goodbyes and trotted out the door. I thought back to my first day in Camp Half Blood while walking around.

I reached for the tall drink.

"Careful." Grover had said. "You saved my life...I...well the east I could do...I went back to the hill. I thought you might want this." He placed a battered shoe box in my lap. Inside was a black and white bull's horn, the base was jagged from being broken and the tip splattered with dry blood.

"The Minotaur."I had said.

"Umm Percy it isn't a good idea..." Grover had warned me.

"That's what he's called in the Greek myths isn't it... The Minotaur half man half bull." The conversation continued. After that I had drank the drink of the gods, nectar. I rose unsteadily to my feet and leaned on the railing. Then a shriek shocked me so much that I momentarily forgot how exhausted I was.

Then the same scream that had scared the life out of me that day, echoed from the hill.

Followed by "I am not stupid you idiotic cats!" I ran to the hill top and my breath caught in my thought. Just beyond the slope of the hill a girl was fighting four sphinxes at the same time. Beyond that lay three more piles of monster dust. The girl ducked and dodged with amazing agility. A sphinx threw itself at her. She ducked around it and stabbed her knife into it's spine. She pulled it out as the sphinx crumpled to dust. Two of the other three glanced at us and charged me. The girl started to chase them but the third pounced her. She rolled over under it and slashed up. The sphinx exploded. The other two where still running for me. I realized what was going on and ran to the girl. I just reached her to be flung into the air by a sphinx. The girl took one look at the situation and threw her two knives with deadly accuracy. One thudded into each sphinx and I fell to the ground.

"Hey." The girl said.

"Hi." I said."I'm Percy, by the way."

She smiled."Aria." She offered."Question, does Camp Half Blood need help?"

"Well actually yes."

"Percy are you alright!" Called Annabeth.

"Yeah fine." I called back.

"I... who's this?" Annabeth looked at Aria.

"Oh."I said standing up."Annabeth, Aria...Aria, Annabeth."

"Hey." Said Aria as she found her knives. She rose and sheathed them. It was only then that I realized introducing these two was probably like exploding a nuclear bomb over the U.S.A.