Hermes and Apollo stared at each other in shock. The other gods and goddesses kept glancing their way, most of them snickering. Poseidon, however, did not seem amused. He marched up to his two nephews, looking ready to skewer one or both of them on his trident.

"So," he demanded. "Are you going to take Percy with you or not?"

Hermes was flabbergasted. He was still trying to comprehend the fact that he was being sent on a quest, let alone that he had agreed to be sent on a quest (idiot). And now Poseidon came up and expected him to answer logical questions? It was too much to take.

"Um, I have things to do…" Hermes muttered and ran like his immortal life depended on it.

He sprinted all the way to his palace and slammed the door shut. Then he locked it, pulled the curtains closed, and collapsed on the floor.

"Well?"

Hermes twitched and glared up at the now-even-angrier Poseidon. Oh, of course, he would just teleport in. The man has no sense of boundaries.

Finally he got to his feet. It's not like he could evade the question forever.

"Yes, I am. Zeus wants me to bring her, and she is one of the greatest heroes alive."

"Is that the only reason?" Poseidon asked shrewdly.

Hermes sighed. "I trust her. She tried so hard to save Luke; she was so kind to me after he…" Hermes couldn't even finish the sentence.

Poseidon looked at him for a long, long time. Finally he seemed to make up his mind. "I have three conditions."

"What are you going to do if I don't follow them, drown me?" Hermes tried to lighten the mood.

"Yes." Poseidon answered in complete seriousness. "Firstly, I want you to promise me you'll do everything in your power to bring my daughter back in one piece."

Hermes nodded solemnly. "I swear it on the River Styx."

"Second, I want you to give her a message for me."

"Well that is my job." Hermes smirked.

"Tell her… tell her that… tell her that I… Oh confound it all."

"I'll tell her you're proud of her."

Poseidon gave a sheepish smile. "Thank you. And one more thing: I would like to strongly recommend that you take Zeus' son Jason on this fool's errand, too."

Percy sighed happily. For the first time in forever, she had absolutely nothing to do. No impossible quests, no horrible monsters, no demanding gods, no annoying demigods. Just two cans of Coke, sunshine, and the beach. She leaned back on her elbows and closed her eyes.

"Mind if I join you?"

Percy tried really hard to play it cool. "That depends. Are you going to ship me off on an errand?"

"Not exactly."

"Ok then. Have a coke."

Hermes sat down with a smile. "I'm getting a distinct feeling of déjà vu." He downed the Coke in a single gulp.

Percy sat up and turned towards him with a smile of her own. "I don't know, it's not the middle of the night, you're not wearing jogging clothes, and there don't seem to be any cursed cruise ships around."

"You remember what I was wearing?" he teased.

Percy blushed and decided she needed to change the subject, now. "So why are you here?"

"Well, there's this quest…"

Percy frowned. "You said you weren't sending me on a quest."

"No, I said I wasn't shipping you off. I'm actually supposed to go with you."

Percy gaped. "What, like, the two of us? Together? On a quest? The two of us? You and me? Us?"

Hermes decided to have mercy on her and put an end to her babbling. "Yes, the two of us, plus Apollo. And Jason Grace. And another demigod, we haven't decided who yet."

"Oh." She thought for a minute. "So when are we leaving?"

Hermes shot her an incredulous look. "What, that's it? You don't want to know where we're going? You're not even going to ask why some of the gods are going on a quest?"

"Nah. I'm sure we're going somewhere horrible and dangerous to fight some horrible and dangerous monster. You can tell me why later. What's important is that I get to watch Apollo try and be useful on a quest. Just the idea of it..." She snorted.

Hermes grinned at her. As stupid as his predicament was, he was starting to get the feeling that it might not be so bad with Percy Jackson along.

AN: I'm sorry it's been so long since I updated, going back to school is terrible.

So I was going to have them leave on the quest in this chapter, but it just got to be way too long. Also, I can't make up my mind who I want the third demigod to be, any suggestions?

And as always, thank you so much to everyone read, reviewed, favorite and followed.