Hello internet.

So, where were we?

*previously* (you have to think it in an announcer's voice for like, NCIS or West Wing or something)

"NO!"

Percy and Thalia didn't even realize they'd screamed out at the same time until both were suddenly in the lowered area, Riptide suddenly in Percy's hand, a great silver bow with an arrow locked and loaded in Thalia's arms, pointing at the man with the sword behind Nico. Percy swiftly used the hilt of his sword to knock Nico's guards out of the way and slice through the bindings around his wrists. The son of Hades seemed surprised and a bit alarmed to turn and see the man ready to kill him a few feet behind him, frozen as Thalia aimed at him, her eyes blazing in fury.

Everyone was utterly shocked at the new arrivals, who grouped together and looked out at the crowd in defensive positions. Nico flexed his wrist and his stygian iron sword materialized back in his hand as he slipped into a defensive position as well.

Everyone was frozen in shock, staring as the three prepared to fight.

"Stop! Stop this!" The center judge jumped to his feet, breaking the room from their shock. He must have sensed the three guards (two already groaning in pain on the ground) would never match the three young adults preparing to fight their way out. "Why have you disrupted the courts?! You anger the gods by fighting in their temple?"

"Ha! This isn't justice, and the gods better not mind our fighting for our lives, for everything we did for them!" Thalia snapped. "What happened to due process? What happened to mercy?! He's a child, a boy!"

"Oi!" Nico huffed, but she ignored him.

"Killing a thirteen year old boy by stabbing him in the back, when he doesn't even see it coming!? What kind of justice is that? What kind of people do that?! Whatever you think justice is, let me tell you that you're just plain wrong!" She let her arrow fly, and it hit the hilt of the executioner's blade, knocking it out of his hands with a clatter. The man half raised his arms in surrender as she loaded another arrow before anyone could blink, again aiming it at him. Better him than a civilian, and this way she could keep her guard up.

"What the courts do is none of your concern! What gives you the right to-" A judge started to argue, but the center judge held up his hand to silence him.

"What is this boy to you? Why do you care for his fate?" He asked reasonably.

"He's our cousin." Percy supplied, responding to the level-headed tone better than being yelled at. He hoped they might be able to talk their way out of this after all.

The center judge frowned. "Family ties are strong, but tell me, are they strong enough for you to willingly give up your lives simply to defend him?"

"Woah, woah, woah!" The confrontation was broken by the other ten demigods coming from out of the crowd and standing on the edge of the lowered floor, looking down at them, their weapons all drawn as well.

"Family ties might be a bit sketchy and weird in our family, but it's all we got, so you better not be thinking about offing our—wait, what are they to us? Uncles and aunt? Ugh, that's weird."

"Shut up, Leo." Piper hissed, having woken up somewhere in this ordeal, looking pale and unstable, but standing on her own power with her dagger clutched tightly in her fist. Jason was hovering close by her side, also prepared to fight, yet obviously protect her as well.

"Wonderful! More delinquents!" A judge snapped at them.

"Oi! Who you callin' delinquents?!" Travis shouted.

"I think he means us, bro!" Connor said in mock astonishment.

Travis suddenly shrugged, anger abruptly forgotten. "Oh, yeah, that's a fair cop."

"Not helping." Thalia sighed.

"What do you want to do?" Annabeth accused the center judge. "Kill us all? Thirteen children of Athens gone in a single day, in the temple of the gods no less?"

"Yeah, killing us in their temple's gonna go over great." Nico rolled his eyes.

"Shut up Niccy, you're the reason we're here in the first place!" Thalia snapped.

"Don't call me Niccy!"

"Child."

"Tree!"

"Useless little twerp!"

"Celibate prude!"

"That's it! You can kill him now! See what I care!"

Thalia and Nico had lowered their weapons as they argued, getting in each other's faces as they snapped back and forth.

"Guys! Not the time!" Percy worriedly interrupted them.

"Enough! You are all children! Arrest them!" The center judge pressed his temples fiercely at the irritating arguing. By that time more soldiers had arrived, and about twenty appeared through the crowd, the civilians backing away quickly, trying to become one with the walls behind them as they sensed the unexpected fight about to break out.

"YO! EVERYONE QUIT IT! THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE RELAXING YOU IDIOTS!"

Everyone froze, because the vast, booming male voice that had everyone covering their ears it was so loud, was coming from Rachel. She stood in her very girly white maiden's dress, frizzy red hair pined up atop her head with white ribbons woven through it, at the base of the statue of Apollo. Each statue was set upon a platform about four feet tall, so standing on Apollo's base made her visible throughout the hall. Everyone could see her, could definitely see her green eyes glowing like lime green flashlights, and everyone could plainly hear the definitely male voice coming from her very female lips.

The mortals may have been able to see everything without the Mist, but that didn't mean any of them could process what they were seeing now.

What was even stranger was that Percy recognized the voice. Maybe it was the statue that poorly resembled the real god standing directly above her, but it came to him almost instantly.

"Apollo?" He said stupidly, lowering his sword in astonishment. Why didn't the god just appear? Why go through the trouble of talking through his Oracle?

"Sup cousin," Rachel/Apollo smirked and nodded to Percy, his/her glowing green eyes flaring unnaturally and got all the mortals near to back away hastily. "Listen demigods! Ok, I'm the Apollo from your time, and yes your memories are screwed up, I did that."

"Uh, why?" Thalia snapped. She disliked Apollo on principle, simply for trying to hit on every Hunter of Artemis because they belonged to his twin, to whom he was forever trying to annoy. "It's not like we were doing anything important you know!" She cried, abandoning her cousins striding across the floor to stand directly beneath the Oracle/god, crossing her arms and glaring up at him/her.

"Oh! Hey Thals! Tell sis I said hi! And yes, I recognize you were doing something important, all the gods do. Well, not Zeus. Sorry, but your dad's an ass." Thundered rolled across the cloudless sky. Some of the mortals jumped.

"Oh, don't you dare!" Thalia shouted skyward, and it fell silent.

"Anyway," Apollo/Rachel said. "Your parents and I recognize you're all doing a great deed for us, but we also know things you don't, 'cuz we're just awesomely semi-all-knowing like that." He/she flashed them a smile, and even Rachel's mortal teeth seemed to glint unnaturally bright. "We know, that you're all wiped. Things happened, and you're all screwed up mentally and physically from these past couple quests and all this crap going on."

"Gee, thanks for noticing." Percy rolled his eyes.

"Anytime," Apollo smiled, letting them know he didn't miss the sarcasm but let it slide with good humor. "As I was saying, you've all been on some tough tasks recently, and now you're about to enter into the biggest battle… uh, ever. You need to be at the top of your game, and well, you aren't."

"Comforting." Annabeth sighed.

"What I did," He continued. "Was organize a little time warp for you, sending you back to a time I thought you might enjoy. Get a little R and R going, without stressful memories and concerns weighing you down for a couple days, weeks, whatever, then set you back in your time all refreshed and ready to take on whatever you need to do! Technically, you'll only be gone three seconds."

The demigods were shocked.

"That's… really… nice of you." Piper blinked, amazed.

"Can you even do that? I mean, do demigods ever get breaks?" Hazel marveled.

Apollo/Rachel laughed. "Ahhh, no. Not really. This is definitely a first! You see, I may be the god of prediction, so time is sorta my thing, but it takes quite a bit of juice to send someone back and forth in time, much less this far back. Each god and goddess picked someone to patron that they felt needed the break, and here you are! Zeus… well, he's a major stick in the mud, and we got him to contribute some power by saying it was to help stop Gaea, but he didn't know the specifics, so he didn't technically sponsor anyone."

"What about us?" The Stolls chorused. "We're not really on any quests currently, how do we deserve a break?"

Apollo smirked. "Ah, Hermes and I find you two a riot! Bit of comic relief I think the rest of 'em will enjoy, right?" The brothers positively lit up upon hearing their dad thought they were funny.

"Rachel here is so I could communicate with you through the millennia, Grover was because he's Percy's best friend and Dionysus wasn't about to send one of his own sons or –imagine!—another demigod." A couple laughed at the idea of Dionysus trying to pick out which demigod he hated the least to send.

"But Demeter sponsored me," Hazel said, lifting her arm to show him. "She doesn't even like me because of who my dad is! How…?"

"She has no children in the quests, and her daughter's husband had two. She may not care for him, but she doesn't hold grudges against demigods, she thought it only fair you both come."

"Crap, now I have to be nice to her?" Nico grumbled, but he was ignored.

"That's…" Jason was at a loss of words and looked around at his friends for help.

"Easily the freakin' nicest thing our parents have ever done for us." Leo supplied, blinking in shock as well.

"Yeah, we are pretty awesome!" Apollo/Rachel beamed.

"Thank you, Lord Apollo." Piper said earnestly.

"Any time honey," He/she winked at her.

"Oh don't you dare, you-!" Thalia cut off her own insult, and maintained– through an enormous amount of effort– to purse her lips and simply nod her thanks to the ego-inflated god.

"Hey! Thals was nice to me! That's one for the record books!" The god laughed.

"Why this time period though? Things aren't exactly going so well, it's not really… uh, relaxing yet, seeing as we were about to get into a fight with a room full of mortals." Frank asked, quietly.

"Well, you weren't going about it right, were you? I'm sure things will go fine from now on, just… be a bit more like me, yeah?"

"What? An egotistical moron?" Thalia blurted out before she could stop herself, and the god just waved her off, too used to it by now to care.

"Exactly! I know you guys hate to admit you have a god as a parent, but this is the one time where flaunting that little fact will make your lives infinitely easier!"

"What? So we're just supposed to ride on our parent's coattails while we're here?" Hazel frowned.

"Exactly! Just for a few days, and it won't affect history, I promise! Athena helped me figure out all the details if that comforts you any."

"Well… yeah, actually, it does." Annabeth and Thalia nodded in agreement.

"Perfect!" He/she threw his/her arms up in the air and gleamed that unnatural smile. "Ok then, that's settled! See you, uh, in a few days or weeks to you, a few seconds to me! Peace out!" His/her eyes began to glow brighter and brighter. "Oh, and uh, someone catch her!" He added as an afterthought before there was a flash of green and yellow light, and suddenly Rachel was tumbling forward off the Apollo statue's base. Thalia lurched forward easily and caught her. She was out cold, like she'd just given a prophecy.

"Whoopee! We're on vacation!" The Stolls and Leo cried, giving each other high-fives.

"Y-y-y-y-ou'r-re…. y-y-you're… b-b-b-but I-I d-d-don't…." The demigods' celebrations were cut short as they realized they were still in a room full of mortals, and every one of their faces was ashen with eyes blown wide. One of the judges was trying to speak and failing spectacularly.

"Whoops, forgot about that…" Leo muttered, shifting uncomfortably under fifty stares.

"We come in peace?" Grover said hesitantly as the crowd continued to gawk at them.

"You're lying! It was a t-trick! That girl was s-simply acting… i-it's not possible! Y-you're lying!" A judge off to the left was stammering.

"I gotta say, that would be an epic magic trick." Travis considered, leaning over and whispering to Connor who smiled and started nodding.

"T-trickery!" A man from the crowd shouted, but his voice cracked and he didn't quite seem so sure of himself.

"You don't believe us? What are you having difficulty with?" Jason offered, and the other demigods had a hard time figuring out is that was meant to be sarcastic and condescending, or actually legitimately helpful. It was hard to tell with Jason.

"That-that voice from the girl, that-that…"

"Was Apollo," Annabeth supplied. ", god of the sun, music, medicine, poetry-"

"Big-headedness, egotism, conceited arrogance—"

"Yes, Thals, point taken." Her friend smiled amusedly at the hunter's distaste.

"How can you speak of a god with such contempt?! How could you disrespect him so? In their temple no less!" A woman in a brown dress in the crowd cried out in a panic, glancing at the stature like they might come to life and bite her.

Thalia huffed. "Listen, lady, if you knew him-"

"Her name is Thalia Grace, and she's the Lieutenant of the Hunters of Artemis, forever sworn a maiden, and Apollo has a history of courting his twin's Hunters to get on Lady Artemis' nerves." Annabeth explained quickly.

"Yeah!" Thalia exclaimed, sniffing angrily and fixing the tiara on her head in pride at her position. "And what bothers my Lady is considered scum in my book!" She complained defiantly, shooting the sky—where the sun was slowly moving toward the west—a murderous glare. "And I HATE poetry!" She shouted at the sun for good measure.

"You know, you're yelling at the wrong Apollo." Percy pointed out. "That's this era's Apollo."

"Shut up kelp head!"

"What'd I do?! I was just—"

"Stop talking, before I gut you like a fish!"

"Oh, hey! What'd fish ever do to you?"

"Taste good, that's what! What the matter? You look a little green! Sea sick?"

"Ugh, you win, you win! Just don't talk about eating fish please…" Percy shuddered, indeed looking rather queasy.

"You speak… you speak as if you've met… met the, uh…" The center judge grumbled.

"Met the gods? Only once or twice." Piper clarified.

"Once or twice too many, for some of them." Percy grumbled.

"Yeah, I could've done without ever meeting Hera." Annabeth sniffed.

"Agreed!" Leo nodded vigorously.

"Apollo," Thalia spat.

"Demeter…!" Nico piped up, eyes wide. "Or Persephone…" He shook the bad memories away and shivered. "Stupid daisy…" He muttered darkly.

"My father." Hazel sighed, closing her eyes as if the memory actually hurt her.

"You claim… a god to be your father?" A judge scoffed at her.

"You got a problem with that?" Nico snapped at him for talking to his sister that way.

"Claiming a god to be your parent! It's blasphemy!" He retorted. "Can you really stand there and stand by these lies?!"

"YES!" The Stolls exchanged a loaded glance and walked as one up to the center judge, leaning their hands on the marble table and looking at him "innocently".

"Connor,"

"and Travis,"

"Stoll." They chorused.

"Sons of Hermes,"

"master thieves,"

"funny as all be it,"

"as the most awesome Apollo mentioned,"

"thank you very much!"

"And all around the most awesome persons,"

"ever!" They finished as one.

Travis lifted an eyebrow. "Problem?" The leaned back and backed away from the table, crossing their arms mischievously, smirking at him.

"You honestly expect me to believe this nonsense? That you are sons of a god!? What foolishness!" He cried.

"Oh yea?" Connor challenged.

"Then how'd we get this?" Travis uncrossed his arms and held up a small purple draw-string bag with silver string embroidered on it. The judge's eyes went wide and clutched at a place on his belt, where his money pouch was no longer.

"Thieves!" He cried.

"Thank you, thank you very much!" Travis did a deep bow.

"Sons of Hermes!" Connor reminded him, laughing.

"Entertainers extraordinaire!" Travis agreed, fist-bumping his brother.

"Return it at once!"

Connor raised an eyebrow. "Sons of Hermes." He repeated, as if that explained it. Well, technically it did.

"Don't be an idiot, give it back!" Annabeth slapped the both upside the head, snatching the pouch and tossing it back.

"Party tricks." Nico scoffed jokingly at the brothers, who split into evil grins at the implied challenge.

"You are thieves, that does not prove your father is the thief!" The judge stood his ground.

Nico began to smile a smile that had everyone—including the demigods—back up a step. His eyes darted to the side briefly before laughing once.

"That may not prove it, but how about this?"

And just like that he was gone, seeming to have simple fallen into the floor like it wasn't there, like he was a ghost passing through solid objects with no trouble. Only the demigods noticed that he had been standing on Percy's shadow.

Almost a full second later, they heard him yell "Boo!" and Leo screamed – a very manly scream, mind you!—as his hair and hands caught fire. Nico leapt back from the flaming boy, laughing hysterically, with a laugh that chilled the room as easily as Leo's flames heated it up.

"Don't do that!" Leo cried, swatting out the flames in his hair and trying to extinguish the flames on his hands by wiping them on his robes, but all it did was leave ash and soot marks on the tan fabric. "Crap! I can't get my heart rate down!" He muttered, trying to calm down from his scare to get the fire out.

"Great gods-!" The judges leapt back, their faces obviously showing that they expected to see a burned corpse momentarily.

"He'll be fine." Piper reassured them. "He's the son of Hephaestus and a fire user. The flames can't hurt him."

"Yeah! But they're freaking annoying!" Leo called, managing to swat the last tongues of flame out, but his dark curly hair looked like coals still smoldering at the end of a campfire with bits of orange embers glinting and fluttering away as they caught the breeze. His ears were still smoking, his cheeks still red from embarrassment, but he was utterly fine. "On the upside, I've never gotten sun burn!" He said thoughtfully, and Nico and the Stolls snickered.

"Impossible…" The center judge said in a daze, but sounded a hundred percent less sure of himself than he had a moment ago.

"Listen," Thalia said reasonably, moving to stand before the marble table. "Let's move past the 'I can't believe my eyes' stage and get right to the 'I'm the daughter of Zeus, and you just tried to stab my little cousin in the back, oh shit! that sucks for you!' part of this meeting." She leaned forward, glaring in obvious distaste at the man, emanating such power as her eyes and hands flickered with electricity that all five judges cowered away from her.

She pursued her lips in expectation. "Care to defend yourself?"