Okay, so sorry I didn't update in the holidays! I didn't have my laptop, or Internet! But anways, here's Chapter 4! This is the characters playing Truth or Dare, so not very important until the end, but you can read the whole thing if you want to watch them have some well-deserved fun.

Piper

Previously- Piper turned to Leo and asked him, 'Truth or Dare, Leo?'

He looked up, and his look of indifference was like a knife through my heart, but I held my face straight and said again, 'Truth or dare?'

'Dare,' he said, keeping his project down. The thing he was working on kind of reminded me of those helicopters he'd sit and make during class at the Wilderness School, which usually earned him 20 rounds of the basketball court. I'd screw up later in class just so that we could jog around together, enjoying each other's company.

I smirked and said, 'Sing the chorus of Mockingbird by Eminem to Frank.' I thought I saw a bit of surprise and fear in his voice as he shakily agreed. Percy, Nico and Reyna were the only hard core Eminem fans other than me, so they were laughing like there was no tomorrow. Frank was completely weirded out, like, What's so funny? It's just a song!

"You'll find out soon enough, Frankie," I thought, as Leo began to sing:

Now hush little baby, don't you cry
Everything's gonna be alright
Stiffen that upper lip up little lady, I told ya
Daddy's here to hold ya through the night
I know mommy's not here right now and we don't know why
We fear how we feel inside
It may seem a little crazy, pretty baby
But I promise momma's gon' be alright

Now everybody was laughing. Frank gave Leo a punch on the shoulder, and he screamed, 'Dude, the f-'

He seemed to remember that he was talking to a guy who considered "Gosh darn!" as explicit, and quickly changed his statement to, 'Freakin' hell!' Frank looked like he'd been slapped.

Leo gave me a look, like, I'm still not talking to you, but it's on. Honestly, that was good enough for me.

Leo then asked Percy, 'Okay, man, since you seem to enjoy laughing at me, truth or dare?'

Percy sat up straight. 'Double dare, Valdez. Bring it on.' Leo smirked and said, 'Read out aloud page no. 5 to 6 of Last Olympian to us, please? Or,' pause for effect, 'Would you rather burn 5 of your mom's specialty blue cookies?'

Percy looked ready to kill, and trust me; you don't want to be in front of his sword when he is angry. He finally said in a bitter tone, 'I'll read.'

I don't know exactly what was on page 5 and 6, but whatever. He tried to grab lifelines, 'Well, I don't have a copy right now…' he faltered when he saw Leo pull it out from behind his back.

He handed it to Percy, who began to stutter, 'I-I-I- , Okay, f-fi-fine. List-Listen clo-close-closely, be-beca-because I-I'm not gon-gonna repeat it,' and started to read.

She pursed her lips.

Naturally, I interrupted. 'Uh, who's she?' Percy replied, 'R-Rach-Rachel,' and immediately continued.

"Look, just forget it for now. Let's pretend we're a couple for normal people. We're out for a drive, and we're watching the ocean, and it's nice to be together." I could tell something was bothering her, but she put on a brave smile. The sunlight made her hair look like fire.

We'd spent a lot of time together this summer. I hadn't exactly planned it that way, but the more serious things got at camp, the more I found myself needing to call up Rachel and get away, just for some breathing room. I needed to remind myself that the mortal world was still out there, away from all the monsters using me as their personal punching bags.

"Okay," I said. "Just a normal afternoon and two normal people."

She nodded. "And so . . . hypothetically, if these two people liked each other, what would it take to get the stupid guy to kiss the girl, huh?"

Everybody visually gasped, and that was not helping Annabeth's mood.

"Oh . . ." I felt like one of Apollo's sacred cows- slow, dumb, and bright red. "Um . . ." I can't pretend I hadn't thought about Rachel. She was so much easier to be around than . . . well, than some other girls I knew.

'It's Annabeth, isn't it? The other girl?' clarified dear Nico, thereby proving that these idiots wouldn't know to shut their mouth if Camp depended on it.

I didn't have to work hard, or watch what I said, or rack my brain trying to figure out what she was thinking. Rachel didn't hide much. She let you know how she felt.

I'm not sure that I would have done next, but I was so distracted, I didn't notice the huge black form swooping down from the sky until four hooves landed on the hood of the Prius with a WUMP-WUMP-CRUNCH! Hey,boss! a voice in my head said. Nice car!

Blackjack the pegasus was an old friend of mine, so I tried not to get too annoyed by the craters he'd just put on the hood, but I didn't think my stepdad would be a real stoked.

"Blackjack," I sighed. "What are you-" Then I saw who was riding on his back, and I knew my day was about to get more complicated. "'Sup, Percy."

Charles Beckendorf, senior counselor for the Hephaestus cabin, would make most monsters cry for their mommies. He was huge, with ripped muscles from working on the forges every summer, two years older than me, and one of the camp's best armoursmiths. He made some seriously ingenious mechanical stuff. A month before, he'd rigged a Greek firebomb in the bathroom of a tour bus that was carrying a bunch of monsters across country. The explosion took out a whole legion of Kronos' evil meanies as soon as the first harpy went flush.

Beckendorf was dressed for combat. He wore bronze breastplate and war helm with black camo pants and a sword strapped to his side. His explosives bag was slung over his shoulder.

"Time?" I asked. He nodded grimly.

A clump formed in my throat. I'd known this was coming. We'd been planning it for weeks, but I'd half hoped it would never happen.

Rachel looked up at Beckendorf. "Hi."

"Oh, hey. You must be Rachel. Percy's told me . . . uh, I mean he mentioned you."

Rachel raised an eyebrow. "Really? Good." She glanced at Blackjack, who was clopping his hooves against the hood of the Prius. "So, I guess you guys have to go save the world now."

"Pretty much," Beckendorf agreed. I looked at Rachel helplessly. "Would you tell my mom-"

"I'll tell her. I'm sure she's used to it. And I'll explain to Paul about the hood." I nodded my thanks. I figured this might be the last time Paul loaned me his car. "Good luck." Rachel kissed me before I could even react.

Percy finished, and everyone turned to look at his girlfriend, Annabeth Chase, a.k.a The Terrifier. She looked ready to burst, and that was not good. Percy gulped.

Then, Percy snickered. Then Annabeth snickered. Then the two of them were full out laughing. I shut them up with a little charm-speak added to an otherwise harmless "Shut the hell up." They did, like good, obedient… kids (They might not like being called dogs. On the other hand, I just mentioned that that was my original statement, so it makes no difference. Don't forget to come to my funeral).

'Why, in dumb, stupid Hera's name are you two laughing?'

Percy said, 'She has known.' Great. Now, he sounds like a priest warning dumb humans about some powerful female goddess, or a best friend who manages to let his friend know in time that said friend's girlfriend found out he's cheating on her. Yeah, dumb stuff like that goes through my mind. Deal with it.

'What?'

Percy clarified, 'I mean, she knew long back about Rachel and my little… thing. She took out her rage then and there. I was fine after a week, though my sword arm hurt for quite some time. Now, it's kind of a big joke.'

He smirked at Leo. 'Sad, Leo. Just sad. And here I was thinking you'd give out the worst dares.'

Leo sat up straight. 'A small setback. We shall meet again, Jackson. Until next time,' he said in one of those James Bond villain voices.

Percy scanned everyone in a very unnervingly detailed manner, like a predator checking out his prey. He finally settled on Jason, who was acting like a Dementor and sucking away our fun time.

'Truth or dare, Grace?' He looked up from the fire, blinking out those unfocused (but cool) beams of light you get from the quick switch in… okay, I'll stop giving you Physics explanations now. Class dismissed.

'Um, dare?' Percy grinned, and Jason knew he'd walked straight into the trap. He seemed to gulp down a HOLY SHIT!

Lucky for Jason, the dare wasn't at all bad. 'Smile and laugh for 10 minutes.' Jason groaned, before giving us that trademark smile that was useful in building my old crush on him.

He looked at Nico and asked him the dreaded question.

Nico put his hand on his chin and pretended to think (Or he really was thinking. You can never tell with Nico). He –finally- said, 'Hmm… how about truth?'

Jason seemed to have thought he'd choose dare, because he had to think a while before saying, 'Nico, are you bi?' He looked confused.

'What?'

'I mean, are you bisexual?' He looked stunned now.

He asked, scared to answer, 'Uh, can I pass?'

'Sure you can Nico,' I said, glaring at Jason's horrible truth. Like, seriously? You can't just ask crap like that!

'Well, then, it's your turn, Nico, so let me help you out here,' said Leo, and before we could protest, he whispered something in Nico's ears. Nico got a lopsided grin and looked at Percy and asked him the question.

'Uh, truth,' Percy said, confident that nothing would go wrong. Wow. I thought such a great warrior might have better instincts, because he was way off-track.

The two of them asked Percy simultaneously, 'Would you have dated Rachel if she hadn't become the Oracle?'

'You're trying to get me killed, aren't you? And, to answer your question, I would probably have dated Rachel for a while before leaving her for Annabeth.'

Silence.

I broke the ice by saying, 'That,' pause, 'was the worst truth answer I have ever heard, and I've played tons of Truth or Dare games, so trust me on this one.'

Percy retaliated with, 'Well, sorry to disappoint, Piper. Were you expecting me to give you a lecture with a PowerPoint presentation?'

'Nah, I prefer dumb books in a dumb point of view,' I shot back. He stopped talking after that, but I felt that he was seriously hurt, because he'd spent a lot of his time on those books and sometimes stayed up writing so he could spend the day with us, but I was too pissed at his childish behavior that I couldn't care less.

Percy asked Reyna the question, and, being the true Roman she is, she chose dare.

'Well, then, please kiss Nico,' Percy said casually. Reyna seemed to choke.

'Uh, say that again?'

'Kiss Nico,' Percy repeated and sat down, as casual as can be.

Luckily Reyna said, 'Well, sorry, but no thank you,' she said and passed.

Percy tried to protest, 'Hey, she can't skip!'

I parried, 'Oh, so is that rule restricted to guys only, you disgusting sexist?'

Yay. Another mistake. He didn't talk to me for the rest of the night.

I absolutely sucking suck at friendship, don't I? But I had a job to do. There were best friends to make things up to.

'Anyway,' I continued, looking wistfully at Leo and Percy, and thinking about our messed-up friendship, 'Reyna, it's your turn.'

Reyna turned to Nico and asked him, 'Truth or dare?'

Nico sat up straighter. 'Dare.'

Reyna smirked and said, 'Reanimate a skeleton and ask it to marry you.' At this, even Jason and Leo cracked up. Nico looked as if someone had accused him of liking a girl. Finally, he turned around and thrust out his hand, palm down, eyes closed in fierce concentration. I thought about Sev, which led me to think of Harry Potter, which led to me biting the inside of my cheek to resist saying "Up, broomstick, up!"

Suddenly, a hand shot out of the ground at Nico's feet. I'm surprised Nico was able to stand unflinching. Me, I would've run into the bedroom, cried and screamed "Any God but Aphrodite and Hera, help me!"

After the hand came out something unexpected. About two feet to its right, the hip came out, and my amazing imagination thought of a butt coming out of the ground.

Soon, the skeleton was out. Suddenly, Percy and Annabeth stood up. I wondered why, and then I saw the shirt he was wearing. I t was an orange shirt with a faded "Camp Half-Blood" written on it.

Nico smirked and made a flipping gesture, and the skeleton spoke.

Now, I know you're expecting him to say something on the lines of 'I'm alive!' which is a weird thing for a reanimated corpse to say in itself, but this guy – or girl – said something on a whole new level of weird.

'Finally! Percy and Annabeth got together, huh? I've been waiting to see them together for a long time. Thanks, Nico.'

'You're welcome.'

I made a time-out gesture. 'Uh, don't want to sound rude, but who are you?'

The skeleton grinned and said, 'Oh, sorry. I'm Beckendorf.' That was all that needed to be said. Percy ran forward and tackled him in a hug.

'I'm sorry,' he muttered.

I don't know if it was just me, but it looked like Beckendorf wiped away a tear from his eye as he said, 'Huh? For what? You've done nothing wrong. It was my sacrifice. I knew it had to be done, so I did.'

Percy laughed. 'How's Silena? Castor? Zoë? Luke?' Before he could ramble on, Beckendorf held him by the shoulders and shook him, saying, 'Hey, they're fine. They're all good. Now, why was I brought here?'

Annabeth snickered, 'I'll let Nico explain.' Beckendorf turned expectantly to Nico, who gave Annabeth the I-will-kill-you-later look, then turned to Beckendorf, kneeled down and asked him, 'Charles Beckendorf, will you marry me?'

Beckendorf was stunned (duh). 'Ooo-kay, I'll be heading back to Elysium now,' he said before running back to the hole from whence he came and jumped back down to Heavenly Hell.

It was quiet for a while, before Nico said, 'Beware, because whoever I choose will not be given anything easy.' He thought for a while before turning to Hazel.

'Truth or dare, sis?' Hazel's eyes widened. Poor thing.

'Uh, t-tr-tru-truth?' Nico showed no mercy. 'How many times have you and Frank kissed?'

Hazel looked like she'd been slapped. Of course, to you that might not like a bad truth, but Hazel is from the 1940s, where kissing was pretty much considered taboo. 'Um, four,' she answered. She looked shaken up for a moment, before she looked back up, anger evident in her face. Even Nico took a step back. Then she looked at me and asked me the question.

'Uh, truth,' I said. Thankfully, she was new at this and I got it easy. 'DO you like someone other than Jason?'

'Yes.' She gasped. 'Really? Who?'

I smiled. 'Now, that wasn't part of the question, was it? I just took the full truth, then poured some out.'

Everyone groaned. I smiled and rubbed my hands together. 'My turn.'

I turned to Frank. 'Truth or dare?'

'Dare,' he said, not at all worried of what I was gonna make him do. Turns out I'm merciless.

'Watch the music video for Animals by Maroon 5,' I said, and the color drained from his face, before I continued, 'With Hazel.' That drained all of his color. (As I value my fellow FanFiction readers' sanity, I am warning you: DON'T. WATCH. THE. VIDEO!)

Annabeth went and got her laptop. We went on YouTube, and I typed in the song. Then Hazel and Frank began to watch it. I found the starting sickening, where he's chopping meat. Then for a while it was just "ugh!" before the truly disgusting part came, where these two people are- (I can't think about it, it makes me want to throw up! So either check out the highly unrecommended video or just use your imagination).

After that traumatizing video, Hazel sat in a corner, shivering and shocked by those haunting images, while Frank, who was less traumatized, though traumatized all the same, asked Jason after a while, 'Truth or dare?'

Jason looked up from his phone. This whole time, he'd been playing "Hill Climb Racing"? What the hell?

'Uh, truth,' he said, (finally) putting away his phone.

I guess Frank's brain had short-circuited from the video, because he asked Jason the worst truth ever. Like, ever (You have no idea how badly I want to sing "We Are Never Getting Back Together" right now).

Anyway, the truth Frank asked was, 'Why are you sad?'

Jason said, 'I'm not saying anything, pass. Uh, Annabeth, you can have my turn,' he said and resumed staring at his phone screen. Seriously, he's gonna need higher powered glasses soon enough.

Annabeth looked at me and asked, 'Truth or dare?'

I sighed. 'Dare, I guess.' Annabeth smirked, and I knew I was in deep schist, 'cause trust me, you do not wanna be part of an Athena child's crazy plans.

'Kiss Leo or Frank,' she said, and before I could smirk and say "You didn't say where!" she clarified, 'On the lips for at least 5 seconds.'

I looked at Leo, who was tinkering with that project of his again. I knew this was my chance. I took a deep breath, then tapped Leo on the shoulder. He looked up, and without thinking, without any indication, I pressed my lips against his.

There. Done. It's the holidays, so you can expect a quicker update than this time. I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Oh, and Merry Christmas!